


You Can't Hide From Angels

by Abi_Faye



Series: Timeless [2]
Category: The Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:33:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 52,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abi_Faye/pseuds/Abi_Faye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(they're warriors of light, remember?)</p><p>And oh, don't mention love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. { prologue: three acts... }

### I.  
the pledge

  
_the magician shows you something ordinary...a deck of cards, a hat or a ... woman_  
...

_Faye, England._  
September, 1885.  
  
They had not known her.  
  
Though the thought was one of relief, Alayne could not help but be a little peeved as well. Granted, she usually was at least a little peeved at Damocles. Abira had stood beside her brother and looked at her only a heartbeat. She appeared more entranced by a distant point just to the left of Lord André. Alayne stood herself three rows back from them, Maeve to her right and their lord in front of them both. The rest of their party, André’s other servants, surrounded her. She kept her eyes down and counted her way through most tedious introductions. It wasn’t numbers she was counting, rather stolen glances at Rowland before she would catch herself and look back to the ground. The last time she had done this, she thought ruefully to herself, she had been expected to repeat courtesies, as Maeve and Lord André—or as she really had to learn to think of them, her master and mistress—were doing now. At least she was spared that banality.

...

  
_he shows you this object._   
_..._   


"But I…went into Claudia’s room. Jude distracted her for a bit…and I know that room, that’s my, room."

Rebecca bites her bottom lip. "I know…who she is. So does Abira, I told her…her brother, was the werewolf, that attacked the town last year. The one Damocles killed. She has a locket with his picture in it, says ‘love, Grayson’….and she also had--," with her free hand, she pulls out the vial, to hand to him. Rowland lips twitch at Rebecca's simple statement and then tilts his head and nods a bit in agreement, not saying anything else and lets her continue.

His brow furrows again, fingers clutching around the vial, looking at it before muttering, "Poison."

"Abira confirmed it could have caused Lord Edward’s symptoms," her words were quiet, as if it were rude to speak of a murder openly before afternoon tea. What a society they were in.

Rowland frowns momentarily in slight disapproval, "You're lucky Marcus didn't catch you..."  
  
Rebecca purses her lips, caught a moment only to speak firmly.

"I took as many precautions as I could. I'm just not going to sit around doing nothing, this woman stole my identity, and the plan worked."

(*)

Marcus’ lips twitched in small amusement as he closed the window, no longer interested in the conversation he had been listening on.  
  
It wasn’t often that Marcus was impressed. He had spent a century and a half in this world, and while he had not seen it all, he had seen quite a lot. Returning to the English court in which he had grown up in had not been the most interesting of affairs, nor did he expect it to be. Yet, he was finding himself honestly surprised with how capable a couple of servants and an undercover Lady really were.  
  
Lady Rebecca was disguised as a maid, and with the help of her lover and his servant friend, attempting to take him and Claudia down. They had already managed to find out who Claudia was, what she was here for, and how she killed Edward. If they were smarter, however, Claudia would already be dead. But, of course, he supposed he was proving to be a bit of an obstacle.

...

  
_perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed_  
...

Rebecca keeps her gaze steady on his as he nods at her, feeling an odd sense of purpose in the action, wishing there was something more she could do for him, anything. The fact that it seemed they were always headed to this from the first vision in July—her past, the world’s future—didn’t seem to make it easier or harder to accept: it just seemed to be what it was. Her gaze darts a moment as he kisses her hand, following the action and swallowing once, the briefest smile fluttering across her face and she nods as he says ‘whatever it takes’, ignoring the weight it seemed to place on her heart.

Not moving in the slightest so as to stay close to him, she says softly, "Is Damocles a murderer because he’s fighting the knights? Are any of them? This isn’t…willful murder, Rowland. It’s war. It isn’t monstrous slaughter, it isn’t heartless killing. This is just a different kind of battle than the knights. You’re fighting for all of us. As brave—if not more so—than any of them."

Rowland exhales, closing his eyes for a brief moment as he processes her words, recognizing the logic in them, the sense in what she's saying, but he still can't help but to feel so inherently wrong with what he had to do.

Her voice softens as the sad little smile returns, "As I always knew you would be. You aren’t a murderer."

Her gaze flickers to the hand on her cheek as she murmurs,

"You’re my champion."

He licks his dry lips, opening his eyes to look at her again, bottom lip quivering slightly before he offers her a small sad smile of his own, grateful to her for saying all of that, for just being there for him.

"Always, m'lady."

Rebecca presses her lips together tightly--trying not to think about the the word 'always' and what it meant technically, knowing that in all truth that was how she felt about him too, her lips flicking in an unconscious, more genuine smile at the title--she did always like it when he called her that, though she didn't think she could explain why. He leans in to kiss her, firmly, not pulling away until he needed to catch his breath. meeting her lips to his hard and sliding her arms around him, kissing him desperately, refusing to think for a few moments about anything but this: how it felt to kiss him, the taste of him on her tongue, the feel of his arms around her, his forehead leaned against hers, staving off all her misgivings and dread with a soul-deep kiss.

His forehead rests against hers, though his eyes remain closed from the kiss.

"We should..." He clears his throat, loathing what he was saying, "find him..."  
  
After several moments as he pulls back, she stays still a moment, and then pulls back, licking her bottom lip with a nervous flick of her tongue, hand clenching the back of his shirt and she nods slowly, saying bitterly* I have a feeling he'll find us.  
  
Rowland frowns a moment, opening his eyes and pulling back to look at her once more, realizing that she was right. He was a fool to think that Marcus would wait exactly where Rowland had told him to.

"Do you think he'll be here soon?

"He's already here." Marcus speaks lazily, seeming to just appear out of nowhere and he walks out of an alcove, heading to them. "Are you finished?," he was otherwise showing no signs of having overheard their 'touching' conversation,

"We're wasting time."

...

_unaltered, normal, real._

...

Her whole body seems to tense as she hears him, her eyes shutting a moment as her arms stay around Rowland, and she turns around very slowly, aggravated beyond belief to think he might have overheard--admittedly, not the most pressing issue, nor his most atrocious act, but it was just downright rude. Rowland seems to stand closer to Rebecca, realizing that willingly letting her go with that monster was going to be extremely tougher than he had already thought it was going to be. As Rebecca answers back firmly however, he nods once, rather proud of her...and yet simultaneously more scared for her safety. Rebecca narrows her eyes at him a moment, breathing steady as she speaks, firm and unmoved.

"You could be a little more courteous. We're the ones helping you, aren't we?"

She was not letting Rowland go, even as her eyes are fixed on Marcus' dark ones.  
  
"I hardly think the addition of manners and etiquette would help to brighten your sour moods. But if you insist," Marcus' eyebrows arch, " _please_ , stop wasting time.  
Rowland frowns, clearing his throat, "Remember our bargain, vampire. No harm must come to Rebecca."

"I did not forget, no." Marcus sounds bored as he looks back at Rebecca, "let's go."

...

but of course ...

...

Rebecca's arms still around Rowland's neck as he holds her tighter, she arches an eyebrow, frowning as he adds 'please' and just exhales once, gaze flitting back to look at Rowland's frown, touched and pleased to hear his words as well, and then bites her bottom lip, thinking for a moment.

She releases him, exhaling a soft, but utterly firm, "Wait."

Reaching up to the necklace she's wearing, she tugs it off her neck, the clasp giving way with a sharp snap. She points her wand at it, screwing her eyes up and having to try twice for it to succeed, mutters a Protean charm on it and her silver bracelet, she drops the bunched up necklace into Rowland's pocket before looking up at him breathlessly exhaling.

"...now you'll know I'm fine." She presses her lips together and turns to Marcus again, steeling herself before meeting his eyes--hating looking in to them; their darkness chilled her, though she couldn't exactly explain why eloquently. As she meets his eyes determinedly, she says firmly, "And he'll know if I'm not."

She squeezes Rowland's hand, not willing to move back from him until that's understood.  
  
Rowland watches Rebecca reach for her necklace in confusion and curiosity, watching it the necklace glow white for a moment before she drops in his pocket and he looks back at her, breathing a little more in relief as he hears her speak and then swallows, nodding, squeezing her hand and then placing a soft kiss on the back of her head as she turns from him.  
  
Marcus had looked at the spell with mild curiosity as well, dark eyes casting between the witch and her wand. Huh. It was rather clever. Unnecessary, but clever nonetheless. Smirking a moment as she seems determined to look him dead in the eyes, he shrugs.

"I suppose killing a few people does leave my word worth very little. Are you ready to go now, or should I add another please in there?"

...

_it probably isn't._

### II.  
the turn

the magician takes the ordinary something...  
 and makes it do something...

...

"And I was not wrong. Love does not lose even when the weakness of flesh may fall to your sick magic. But you? You will always, lose. No matter if you live hundreds of years, you'll do so alone, unloved, and that is a loss Marcus. One I know you're aware of, even if you've suppressed it and think you've over come it."  
  
Marcus' eyebrows rise before he rolls his eyes, waving his hand dismissively. "Suffering is imminent. If one does not learn to delight in everything that life, or in my case death, offers, then one risks being consumed by it. I am merely surviving." He exhales, shaking his head. "You're just spewing out words now, Rebecca--for now you're claiming to know me? In an attempt to satisfy your need to lash out. Go ahead, do so."  
  
He leaned back in his chair.  
  
"I know my opinion means nothing to you," She is scornful for a moment, "I know none of this means anything to, beyond providing some sick theater to your...existence, as you say." Rebecca narrows her eyes. "It is why I did not bother telling you that Portia found love in spite of you--that her life is not summed up by you, nor of the occasion in which I visited Madelyn's sister--do you even remember her? I know it may all just be a worthless stream of names to you by now. You don't let anything touch you--human or otherwise. You can't care."  
  
Rebecca stands up now. Marcus listened to her with raised eyebrows, watching her stand up in interest, exhaling and shaking and shaking his head as it seemed never ending, unfazed by the insults, her insinuations of him, and her lectures on love. Rebecca glared, not entirely sure where the words are coming from. She had never intended to use her gift before--for now it seemed it was a Gift, if only because she knew now she was actually capable of at least surprising him. She gets a sick sort of vindication and pleasure from this fact as she continues to look at him. She continues to speak, only now she can't see around her, instead presented by a vision of him on his knees, sobbing into a body. Were it not for the odd period clothes and specificity of the sudden vision, she'd believe it wasn't a vision, but rather what she wished was happening right that moment.  
  
"You can't care, you cannot get attached--because then it'll hurt. Then you'll suffer--as you already are, as you have been, as you convince yourself you aren't. You are more afraid of emotional attachment and pain than...anyone I have ever known." She bites her bottom lip. "And it is known, Marcus, and it is an utter displeasure. You'll tell yourself I don't matter. I'm worthless. My opinion amusing, fascinating, pointless--but perhaps a bit annoying, aggravating at most and if I bother you enough--if I actually am deemed worthy enough to anger you, then you'll kill me, tell yourself it's a shame--use the story of me attempt to terrify your next victim, your next meaningless captive--I know all of this."  
  
She then raises her hand.  
  
"And I know you can throw off all of that--have it roll over your back, you pathetic, fucking bastard, you monster, but for this." She looks at him another moment with steel in her eyes and ice in her heart, her anger making it absurdly easy to find the name she wanted and she says it in a whisper. For all her fervor, it's soft, carrying through her echoed, slapped words,

...

_...extraordinary_

...

**"Her name was Natalie, wasn't it?"**

  
...  
now you're looking for the secret ...

...

The mention of that one name had him looking up at her, his jaw clenching, eyes narrowing in a glare as he stands, speaking through gritted teeth. Her jaw sets, her eyes narrow and despite the flicker of fear, she is more flushed with pride and pleasure to see she did after all get to him.  
  
"Congratulations, Rebecca, you've made me angry. Satisfied?" He purses his lips. "I don't know what you think you're doing, or what you think you know." He takes a step forward, eyes dark and still narrowed in a glare. "But you mention that name to me again and I will be glad to show you how much more of a monster I can be."  
  
"What's the matter Marcus, you don't like that name?"  
  
Rebecca looks up at him as he stands, for he is taller, but she continues regardless--too angry to listen to her fear. First she lifts her wrist. Her hand closes over her bracelet, as if to remind him of Rowland's bargain, but more simply comforted by the tether to the man she loved. She didn't know precisely what she was doing: all she knew was that she wanted to hurt this man more than she'd ever wanted to hurt anyone in her life, and unlike most, she might honestly be able to, for where he physically surpassed her in every capacity, he did not magically surpass her Sight. That she could use and oh, how she wanted this man in pain.  
  
"What about Alphonse?" She's breathing heavy and harsh. "Careful, Marcus, you're admitting you care about something beside yourself. Admitting what I say may matter to you. Does it? My knowledge mean something now?"  
  
Marcus stands seething for several moments, and then his lips flick up in an unkind smirk.

...  
but you won't find it.  
...

"I know, Marcus, because you are not infallible and you are not unbeatable, and you have no idea who I am. I have been deceiving you as I've deceived everyone in that manor for a very long time. But you're right. I don't matter. It doesn't matter how I know. All that matters is that of all your victims, the one you force to suffer the most is yourself--the one whose life--death, whatever---is an eternal hell, is yours. And yes. For all those I love who you have hurt, you've made betray, you've killed--for all of them and for myself in whatever sick, morbid pleasure it is--I am so glad."  
  
Marcus rolls his eyes, shaking his head.  
  
"I already told you, Rebecca. I delight in suffering, even my own." He narrows his eyes. "You think you're informing me of things I don't already know? Of a fate that has eluded me all these years?" He scoffs once, smirking. "No, I know perfectly well what I've done, what I'm doing and why. I have made peace with my existence and all it entails, " He takes a step towards her. "So congratulations, Rebecca."  
  
Another step. Her eyes widen and she stands stiff as he moves in still speaking.  
  
"You've made yourself feel better at my expense."  
  
Another step. Her gaze darts to the door irrationally as she wonders if she dare flee, before narrowing as she knows she wouldn't make it two steps. She looks back.  
  
"Toyed with information you have no right over."  
  
Another.  
  
"And successfully made me angry." He stops right in front of her, eyes pitch black as night, staring down at her. She endeavors to make herself still, despite her rabbity heart, her shuddering limbs she locks in place with pure stubbornness and even as she breathes harshly she looks back up at him with her visceral hatred, anger, and fear evident.  
  
"Now do yourself and your pretty little lover a favor and close, your fucking, mouth."  
  
She shakes her head very slowly. There were many things she could say to his self-declared masochism, and she was far from losing her nerve even when towered over like that for a certain madness had overtaken her, but she knew it would bring herself pain--and Rowland pain--unnecessarily, for there was nothing she could do for this man. He had no sense of remorse, even though his guilt and self-loathing were obvious to her, and overwhelming. So she simply lifts her head and says very softly.  
  
"That's very sad."  
  
He hisses through a clenched jaw.

**"Death tends to be that way."**

...  
because of course,  
you're not really looking  
...

Sitting, Rebecca has the bracelet laying over her heart. Her hand is laying on the frosted glass, her breath fogging it up, every now and then rubbing it as though she could actually see something through it. Her nails rap the glass nervously as the silence grows and stretches, seeming to suspend time. She knows Marcus is still looking at her, and she shivers. It might have been ten years since she stopped shouting: the quiet gloom seemed endless, eternal, deafening and terrifying. She startles all of a sudden.  
  
Out of the window, the dragon had seemed to fall out of view as if hit with a sudden seizure. Next she sees -- and hears -- flames entering the air in short spurts, wracking roars hurting her ear drums, as if...but how...the dragon was coughing. It disappeared once more and her eyes went wide, before she slams her hands over her ears--the dying roar shaking her, loud. He'd done it. Rowland had done it. A grim smile crossed her lips a moment before her expression falls, wanting nothing more than to be in his arms at that moment. She knew how lost he had to be, heartbroken for him. Slowly she looks back at the cold, murderous gaze of Marcus and shivers once, standing instantly and holding her bracelet as she looks at him, eyes narrowed, asking in a breathless whisper,  
  
"...Are you satisfied?"  
  
Marcus had not taken his eyes off Rebecca for a second. Contrary to his words before, he was immensely curious as to how she had come to know so much about him, information that only he was privy to. It wasn't Legilimency, for he would have felt her probing his mind otherwise...whatever it was, he didn't like it.  
  
And he slowly came to the conclusion that he simply could not let this woman go alive.

...

deep down...

...

The soft hair at the nape of her neck prickled and stood on end. All sounds ceased in the room and the air was oppressively silent. Turning her hair slightly to the side, she cut a glance behind her, breath slightly baited. With a shuddering breath to steady her, she continues looking at him through narrowed eyes as he approaches her--her glare stubborn, immobile, even as her breaths suddenly seem precious as he stops in front of her. Her jaw shook as she snapped.  
  
"Who cares? All I know is you cared once. You don't anymore--at least you've convinced yourself you don't. Human life means nothing to you. Life means nothing to you. My information is meaningless to anyone but you--what I know is the best of you. You don't want anyone to know it?"  
  
Marcus is smirking wide, enjoying this as he stops walking home, hearing her and then raises his hands. He appeared contemplative for a moment before speaking.  
  
"Go ahead then. Stop me. You want to kill me, I can see it in your eyes...you're scared of how much you want to hurt me." He licks his lips and shrugs again. "So try."  
  
She flinches once away from him shuddering, her breath drawing in sharply. The silence stretches as she swallows, shivering despite the warmth of the room. A little more shaken and unsure, it is only slowly the Rebecca actually alights on an idea. It was risky. She knew she would only get one shot, and that he can't be on his guard in the slightest for it to work so she simply lets herself shake. Her body was threatening to do so anyways. She draws another breath in with a hiss and looks up at him, hands still behind her back.  
  
She was incanting in her head as hard as she's ever thought anything, as fast as she could.

...

you don't really want to know.

...

"You attempted to humiliated me, and see, I don't take kindly to that." His eyes narrowed, as he watches her, pleased as she started shaking, her brave words finally falling through. Rebecca stills as she finishes the incantation, relieved to be successful, comforted by the weight in her hand behind her back. At his cruel smirk of success and pleasure, she snaps coldly in a bare whisper,  
  
"And I don't take kindly to murder, Marcus."  
  
She grips it, but he didn't seem to hear her--for slowly, she shook her head in answer to his question, shaking still more violently.  
  
"Thought not. Goodbye Rebecca--"  
  
He immediately lunged towards her, grabbing her shoulders as he aims his fangs at her neck.

...

you want to be...

...

Letting out a startled cry, there was no need for her to pretend, her fear was stark, visceral, real, and so was her shout. She fights to keep her eyes open through sudden tears as his fangs scrape her neck, sinking to her skin. She hisses and then screams with the pain, now kept still only by the grip he had on her, knowing there were finger-shaped bruises being formed on her shoulders--and without hesitation, she stubbornly lifts her arm and slams her knife down. Conjured wandlessly, wordlessly, her ire seemed to cause it to pop into her hand--the steel now sinking deep into his neck. She rips it sideways hard, gagging and choking on the scent and sudden tide of blood coating her hands, splattering her face, staining her chest.  
  
Not a split second had passed before he jerked away from Rebecca, growling in pain, the sound choked off into gurgles as blood spurted out of his neck and simultaneously down his throat as he hacked. Had he an actual need to breathe, he would have choked on his blood and died, instead he stumbled backwards, clutching his throat, keeping pressure, swallowing his own blood as he struggled for his wand, the pain excruciating.  
  
Seeing first the surprise in his eyes, she thinks it's nothing compared to her surprise that it had worked--that she had actually stabbed him in the neck, forced him, forced Marcus, to step back from her, causing her to gasp out in relief from the loss of his physical grip, his immense strength. Her eyes wide, she keeps the hand with the knife high, her other hand slamming down on her own neck, wincing and holding it--but knowing she's ultimately unharmed. She stares at him in shock and then scrambles away from him towards the window. Hearing his obvious pain and frightened by the murder in his cold, dark eyes, she snaps an echoed,  
  
"Goodbye Marcus."  
  
Frenzied and wild eyes looked around before he simply slashed his wand through the air, wordlessly depulsoing everything away from him, knowing he was too injured to fight, that he was at a disadvantage. Preparing to step forward to stab again, she makes it only three steps, before she gets caught in one of his spells and is blasted into the air to land heavily another fifteen feet away from him. Dizzied now, she keeps her grip on her knife tight--knowing that considering he had already wanted her dead, she had hardly helped the situation. Yet as she spins, gasping, rubbing blood from her neck and lips and attempting to prepare to stab him again, she finds herself blinking in astonishment as she lays in the wreckage of the room, and then the thrill of triumph. Without a second thought and with his hand still clutching his throat, he ran off in the other direction, out of the cabin, and disappeared into the cover of the woods.  
  
He'd fled.

...

_...fooled._

...

### III.  
the prestige

but you wouldn't clap yet  
...

Under the cover of night, he slipped easily past any curious eyes and descended towards the crypt. His family home was no longer erect for it had long ago rotted to the ground- it was now a farmer’s field; the crypt was left untouched. He supposed that was an advantage of muggle peasants- they had much respect for the dead.  
He had no need for the light nor warmth that a torch provided, and yet he took one anyway. He was being foolish, surely, for no logical reason existed to explain his actions which meant that the reason, even whilst unknown to him, had to be an emotional one. And how he detested it.

Marcus previously thought all his secrets were kept buried underground, literally, in this tomb. Secrets no one knew about while he was alive, secrets that should have been impossible to discover especially now, a century and a half later and yet the false lady Rebecca had brought them to light as easily as lighting a candle.

He had traveled to Russia after he healed his neck, after having to feed on two full grown men to regain his strength, his plan being to dispose of her family and friends. Marcus was angry, he was impulsive, and knew there was no way for him to enter Faye manor again without risking his life. 

Yet upon arriving at Russia and extracted information he soon realized that there were no Cowens, and the group she had traveled with to the English court the first time were unheard of as well...

He could have revealed her for a phony, infiltrate the Russian court and convince someone to send a letter revealing Rebecca to be an impostor herself but he realized he was tired. Tired of humans, their games, their lies, their mindsets, their morals, and especially tired of their emotions.

He journeyed back to England, one last time. He had no interest in staying long, there were other places he could easily retire to all around the world but there was something he had to do first, feelings he had to bury once more. His every waking moment was spent remembering, memories he had efficiently kept hidden in the darkest part of himself plagued his every thought. Their reminder weakened him, pained him, and he couldn’t continue like that. He couldn’t continue to remember his brother Alphonse, their Quidditch matches and duels, the way they always stood by one another whenever their father attempted to pit them against each other.

He passed his father’s grave without a second thought.

Yet the memories that haunted him most were of her, of Natalie. He remembered everything about her: the way she dressed, the way she laughed, the glint in her eyes as she spoke of travelling the world, her smile…the way she said his name. Memories he had been ignoring brought to the forefront of his mind again by that damn woman.

**And how he hated her.**

...

  
because making something disappear...

...

"I...I know a lot about him I wish I didn't."

Rebecca's voice was hard. "And I couldn't...couldn't stop myself...I know who he loved," she shudders, "Her name was Natalie. A vampire killed her--killed his brother too. A hundred years ago or so...Rowland, I--I think he might actually hate himself more than we hate him."

It was a grand statement, for these two angels who'd become warriors. Did she really think that? Did she think it was possible that something could outweigh her hatred for this monster, the one who snuck under her skin so much she attempted to become the very thing she loathed? Rebecca hisses and rubs over her lips, eyes tracking the cold breath as it paints the air in white swirls.

Then tilts her head and she amends,

"...maybe just as much."

"...it seems we both saw the small piece of humanity those monsters had left...," he's swallowing a lump in his throat after he speaks. He was unable to help a little noise of incredulous disbelief as Rebecca mentioned he hated himself more than they did, because hate him he did. It was just...wow. Rowland was still so shocked to hear she had managed to do so, and smugly proud of her at the same time. So damn proud. He nevertheless frowned as she said he was still alive.

"But what if he comes after you...?" He purses his lips, exhaling before looking back up at Rebecca, curious as to how she had managed to stab him in the first place,Jaw trembling a bit, he decidedly ignores the fact that she had yelled at him, provoked him, he didn't care, he thought she was amazing for doing so, for attacking him, for beating him.

Rebecca's eyes shut, shaking her head under his chin and says softly, "He can't get to me. Not here, with everyone for hundreds of miles around ready to kill him on sight. And I--I think I scared him. He didn't know how I knew....I was a threat..."

Hugging her tighter, he kissed the side of her head, exhaling breathlessly,

"That's my girl. I'm so relieved you're okay, watching Claudia die it...I couldn't shake the feeling...for a moment I felt like I was watching you die as well, and I couldn't- I can't," Rowland squeezes her in his hot embrace, holds her tighter, burying his face in her hair, breathes her in.

"I couldn't bear it."

She tucked her head beneath his chin, shutting her eyes and clearing tears with one hand before wrapping her arms tightly around him and focusing on breathing, in and out. When he speaks, she shudders once, only seeming to realize now how close she had come to never seeing him again--how scared she was of the monster who had plainly stated his intent on murdering her. Rebecca's eyes go wide, opening to look at him and she nods firmly, fervently, keeping her neck tucked against his shoulder so as to hide the scrapes from his fangs. Just looking at him, she lifts her hand now to his cheek, brushing tears from his cheeks as well, realizing he had been crying before now and she shakes her head stubbornly, her words fervent.

"Rowland..." she brushes her thumb against him, refusing to move away from him at all; breathlessly, "You saved us. You saved everyone. I'm so proud of you..."

Rebecca ignored the fact that she was far from okay. (Would never really be again).

From that day forward, the monster who gorged on hearts he'd just ripped from a chest, who fed on fear and tried to drain life from her body -- became Marcus.

(She owed him that.)

...

isn't enough.

...

He was there to remember that, there to remember that he was nothing, that he felt nothing, that nothing could ever touch him again.

“You’re dead…long dead,” he whispered a sound so soft that it didn’t even carry down the tunnel. “Your absence will always live with me, though I cannot acknowledge it, it would be my undoing. I am similarly dead, dead but doomed…I shall never find peace, nor do I deserve it…you will always be out of my reach.” Marcus closed his eyes a moment before saying simply, “You are dead. I am dead. We are dead.”

Marcus didn’t know how long he had remained in the crypt in silence, he had no measure of time, he could lay still for an eternity if he so wished but when he started moving again the torch had lone gone out. Walking out of the crypt, he saw the sun about to rise but he suspected as much and had ensured he had taken the potion to protect him.  Frowning a moment as he heard a movement, he moved at his supernatural speed to grab whoever it was by their shirt, pinning them against the stone door of the crypt. Seeing the shaking farmer in his hands, Marcus felt nothing- it had worked.

  “Please, don’t kill me! My wife, my kids!” The man pleaded with him, mumbling through explanations, through apologies. “Please, don’t kill me!”

Marcus exhaled as the man finally became quiet before he tossed the farmer aside on the ground. He was weary, he was tired- humans exhausted him so he left.

Plenty of death awaited him already.

...

you have to bring it

...

_London, England.  
December, 2012_

For all of the years that had passed by, London had not actually improved very much. The streets were still crowded, and loud; the smell still repugnant to his nose, and the sight of it as displeasing as it was in its Victorian Age. He had a distaste for the capital city of London which Marcus would never quite rid himself from. It was a dislike deeply rooted into his being, since the time he was human, and it was those nuances that more often than not proved themselves difficult to shed; those last remnants of a reality that seemed more dream than factional. He would always dislike London, and yet he didn’t have the luxury of avoiding it forever.

He was catching glances but the one who caught his own gaze in return was the sight of a woman, a woman whom he had believed to vanish off the face of the Earth more than a century ago. 

Christmas remained her favorite holiday to shop for; a joy of spoiling her husband and children something that was always threatening to bankrupt her. Blair's parchment was tight in her hand. The scroll, to borrow Alec's phrase, rivaled Claus him(or her, Blair refused to believe that Ms. Claus was idle and oh how she beamed in pride every time she mentioned it)self. Their son's by comparison was very specific and to the point. Though where they were going to find that model train set she wasn't sure…she mentally curses her father (lovingly, of course), for having induced such an intense hobby. The train set was aside a chemical potion set. Merlin, how she hoped that wasn't because he intended on imploding the little model towns around the train set (she was keeping an eye on Jesse).

She walked, shopping bags in hand, on the other side of the street, the once and false _**Lady Rebecca.**_ The memory of their last encounter quickly played in his thoughts; she had been younger then, this was an older woman but not by the century she was supposed to have aged. Contrarily, the only thing Marcus had changed was his hair, and his attire as time went on. Jeans, a navy sweater, a black coat, his hair cut shorter, but nothing else had altered, every line remained, but this woman…who…what, was she? It had taken a second, just one tiny second, something that would have been missed with the blink of an eye to cross the street and step in front of her, as if she were bumping into someone who had just rounded a corner too quickly.

And it took even less than a second to grab her and take her with him into the nearby alley, away from the crowd.

Rowland and she had split up, ostensibly to find the set faster. But his ears were red, so she knew he was buying a gift for her too (well, and it was cold), and for a moment she had been lost in remembering with a soft, fond smile kissing her husband's ear tips as he rubbed warmth back into her fingers -- the next moment she barely has time to gasp out, as she's spirited across the street, into an alley and pressed against a brick wall. Yet it wasn't any of it that -- it wasn't the abrupt loss of control over her own body, her irritation for losing Blair's index scroll, or even her potential head injury as her black hair barely cushions her landing, curls  bouncing and sticking in snow -- none of this, was the reason for her terror. It settles in her gut as she lays eyes on the man who grasped her.  
  
Marcus Ellwood.

_"I have to admit," he began after releasing the hold on her arms, and pulling on his sleeves to straighten them, "you’re looking very well for a woman who’s supposed to be in her hundred and fifties."_

_"Oh, Marcus." She hisses up at him, tongue trapped between her teeth. Shaking her red cheeks from side to side, she echoes his smart remark with ease, a slow smile on her lips. "Do say my title, would you, if you're going to insist on recognizing me? It's been much too long since I've heard it."_

...

  
back.

...


	2. The Once and False Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Use my title, m'lord. 
> 
> (It's just been so long since I've heard it).

| Marcus | _ **  
**_  


_**London, December 2012** _

For all of the years that had passed by, London had not actually improved very much. The streets were still crowded, and loud; the smell still repugnant to his nose, and the sight of it as displeasing as it was in its Victorian Age. He had a distaste for the capital city of London which Marcus would never quite rid himself from. It was a dislike deeply rooted into his being, since the time he was human, and it was those nuances that more often than not proved themselves difficult to shed; those last remnants of a reality that seemed more dream than factional. He would always dislike London, and yet he didn’t have the luxury of avoiding it forever.  
  
Business recalled him to the island he once called his home, business and a personal need. He’d visited once or twice, years ago, but never stayed long. Now, when everything was culminating to a point, he found it imperative to remain here. Of course, if everything did actually work as intended, he would not need to stay for too long; he never did.  
  
With his hands in the pockets of his coat, not cold for he longer felt the stinging freeze of an English winter, but rather to play off as another human walking home after a day at work, he tended to make quite the impression even as he walked by. Vampires were the perfect predators, he once said, everything about us attracts the humans in, and only when it was too late to retreat did they perceive the danger hidden behind the predator’s eyes. He caught glances, heard some whispers, but continued to move throughout the crowd. He was not so much as he once was, he did mingle even unnecessarily with his pray with no intent on harming them, he was much more careful about those he chose to kill but today he had no time for it.  
  
He was catching glances but the one who caught his own gaze in return was the sight of a woman, a woman whom he had believed to vanish off the face of the Earth more than a century ago. She walked, shopping bags in hand, on the other side of the street, the once and false Lady Rebecca.

| Rebecca | 

Christmas remained her favorite holiday to shop for; a joy of spoiling her husband and children something that was always threatening to bankrupt her. Blair's parchment was tight in her hand. The scroll, to borrow Alec's phrase, rivaled Claus him(or her, Blair refused to believe that Ms. Claus was idle and oh how Rebecca beamed in pride every time she mentioned it)self. Their son's by comparison was very specific and to the point. Though where they were going to find that model train set she wasn't sure…she mentally curses her father (lovingly, of course), for having induced such an intense hobby. The train set was aside a chemical potion set. Merlin, how she hoped that wasn't because he intended on imploding the little model towns around the train set (she was keeping an eye on Jesse).

| Marcus | 

The memory of their last encounter quickly played in his thoughts; she had been younger then, this was an older woman but not by the century she was supposed to have aged. Contrarily, the only thing Marcus had changed was his hair, and his attire as time went on. Jeans, a navy sweater, a black coat, his hair cut shorter, but nothing else had altered, every line remained, but this woman…who…what, was she?  
  
It had taken a second, just one tiny second, something that would have been missed with the blink of an eye to cross the street and step in front of her, as if she were bumping into someone who had just rounded a corner too quickly. And it took even less than a second to grab her and take her with him into the nearby alley, away from the crowd.

 

Rowland and she had split up, ostensibly to find the set faster. But his ears were red, so she knew he was buying a gift for her too (well, and it was cold), and for a moment she had been lost in remembering with a soft, fond smile kissing her husband's ear tips as he rubbed warmth back into her fingers -- the next moment she barely has time to gasp out, as she's spirited across the street, into an alley and pressed against a brick wall. Yet it wasn't any of it that -- it wasn't the abrupt loss of control over her own body, her irritation for losing Blair's index scroll, or even her potential head injury as her black hair barely cushions her landing, curls  bouncing and sticking in snow -- none of this, was the reason for her terror. It settles in her gut as she lays eyes on the man who grasped her.  
  
Marcus Ellwood.  
  
He hadn't aged (of course not). Nor had his face softened, grown kinder as he beheld her despite the clear absence of a silver knife in his throat or the life's blood of others, of those she loved, that he stole to survive dribbling down his chin. Though macabre, the memory stolen from a horror flick was more pleasing to how he looks at her now.  
  
Heart in her throat, she shivers in a way that has nothing to do with her open jacket, the silver fastenings unbound atop a chest moving fast, and thanks her lucky stars that her last conversation with her parents had been so loving, that she had kissed her children an hour before and held her husband close. At least her last memories were warm. She shuts her eyes, clinging to them in the chilled embrace of a man who personifies death.  
  
And waits.  
  
Why wasn't she dead yet?  
  
Blinking her eyes back open, she stalls, realizing how intent his stare was on her. Now she refuses to blink again. If she was going to die, well, she'd bought herself ten years --twelve, had two beautiful children and married the love of her life. She wasn't going to let this monster rip her apart while she did nothing and cowered with fear.

"I have to admit," he began after releasing the hold on her arms, and pulling on his sleeves to straighten them, "you’re looking very well for a woman who’s supposed to be in her hundred and fifties."  
  
He spoke, releasing her and she leaps a hand to her elbow, massaging away the scarlet marks he left so deep he must have imprinted her bone. He was still close -- so close, she felt his icy skin was stealing her warmth, his lips taking her breath, his presence oppressive as he stares into her blue eyes as if he meant to steal her soul, bearing down on her to snake and twine every part of her to him. Bound by his gaze, she coughs out to clear her head and keeps her narrow eyes locked to his. Threatening glare from this bastard or not - he wanted to scare her into exposing herself to him?  
  
Fuck that. His question had revealed why she wasn't dead in one smarmy comment. She always could read him, she thinks -- bitter and grateful for the knowledge at once. She was alive yet because he couldn't figure it out -- couldn't figure her out. He was trying to solve her mystery -- twelve years since she'd seen him, for her it had been more than a hundred. Struggling to steady and contemplate a strategy, the logic and knowledge outweigh her terror for the simple fact she hated so: she, Rebecca Cowen Stone, knew this man. Of course he wanted to solve her before he killed her, because she'd beaten him. She'd proved that the all-powerful Marcus Ellwood, the Lord Dick himself -- could be beaten by a human girl and he still didn't know how she had. So she had to challenge him again -- deepen the mystery of her, if she had any hope of survival.   
  
"Oh, Marcus." She hisses up at him, tongue trapped between her teeth. Shaking her red cheeks from side to side, she echoes his smart remark with ease, a slow smile on her lips. "Do say my title, would you, if you're going to insist on recognizing me? It's been much too long since I've heard it."   
  
And pft -- she was not a hundred; she was thirty-six, and yes: time traveler, impostor Lady, Seer and the one who'd stabbed a knife into his throat….but she was a woman first, and she should hope she did not look a hundred and fifty. So she scoffs, and adds coolly,   
  
"A hundred and fifty? How dare you, my lord. I don't look a day older than thirty."

| Marcus | 

He heard it, the spike in her breathing and the frantic sound of her heartbeat when she recognized him. The blood rushed through her veins so quickly, that the mere smell of it threatened to engulf his very nose. He had fed recently and he didn’t have to feed as much the more the time passed, but the close proximity and the way her heart beat so frantically against her chest, so unlike his own that no longer pumped blood through his veins (though the blood was there, it was borrowed), that he felt the hunger stir inside him once again.  
  
Marcus had never thought he would have a chance to exact revenge so personally. Once Rebecca had left with Rowland, vanished without a trace, he had made his way into Russia only to find the truth of her lies, so he traced the Stone lineage, their descendants throughout the years, and yet, killing all of them had lost its appeal soon enough. Nevertheless, he always kept a close watch. It seemed to him, however, as Rebecca’s icy blue eyes stare into static grey ones, he had not kept a close enough watch. Oh, but he would now, if he allowed her to live and leave, which if he was being honest with himself, he had already made up his mind to do so. The hate he bore this woman was so great, so beyond himself, that to extinguish it all with a simple snap of the neck, or feeding on her until she was completely dry, was too much of a waste to consider.  
  
That was always the problem, he realized, between himself and Rebecca. She intrigued him much more than any woman ever had the right to, and she saw through him as if she were looking through a window. He had forgotten that, in the time away, but nevertheless here they were, and he felt it. He wasn’t the only one analyzing, gazing up and down and trying to find a sense of understanding. He despised the connection, but he’d only ever made one move to break it, in trying to take her life. Her retaliation was quick, swift, and had caught him off guard, just enough that he needed to retreat but he hadn’t gone after her. He hadn’t pulled the knife out of his neck and killed her anyways.  
  
Who was this woman?  
  
At least, there was one thing he could say entirely sure of himself, Rebecca Cowen (was Rowland around as well? He’d enjoy seeing him again), was no Lady.  
  
“A gentleman might acquiesce to your request, but as we both know, I’m no gentleman, and you’re no Lady, never were.” He rested his hands against the wall on either side of her head, surveying her with continuing interest. Her hips were wider, from childbearing no doubt, and all else grew in pleasing proportions. A woman, not the angry teenage girl who had yelled at him knowing that any moment might be her last.

“And I was never much for role play.”

The harsh smirk crossed his features easily enough, as it was well practiced to do. Not a day over thirty, she had said, but wasn’t it the world’s cliché that women never revealed their true age? In Rebecca’s state, it was plainly true that the saying applied, but in what way specifically? How was she still young and alive after all these years? His thirst for an answer was quickly becoming more poignant than his hunger for all else.  
  
“Come on now, Rebecca,” he let her name fall from his lips in a whisper after brushing off snow from the tendrils of her hair. “I’m Lord no longer, you can say my name. We’re that intimate already, after all. What with you stripping away all my defenses and putting a knife in my throat.” The last words were a small growl that never left his throat, but he wasn’t completely finished, as he admitted with a cold smirk.  
  
“Which, I do admit I deserved.”

| Rebecca |

Shivers that had nothing to do with the snow slip up her spine as he looks down her front, a curl in his lips in that way that betrays he liked what he saw. Attempting to back up, she's reminded as the nape of her neck bumps the brick: he had her cornered. Thumb hooking the pocket of her elbow, she holds her arm rigid as his hands brushes through her hair.   
  
Merlin, his gaze was stripping her naked. Narrowing and narrowing her gaze, she decides if he could look her over that plainly - that intently, with such thirst it should scare her -- such want she should attempt to run, then she was going to do the same to him. And it would be foolish to run, for that would only make him give chase…if there was anything she wanted from this encounter apart from survival, it was to stop from leading him straight to her true family. If he knew she was no proper lady, then he'd looked into her past (it didn't surprise her), and that meant likely … a few dozen Russian nobles had suffered a painful death on her behalf. Her heart skips another beat at the thought.   
  
There were tears in the corner of her eyes -- frozen there, but not from fear or sadness. Rebecca simply refused to blink. Twisting her mouth, it was with a small lift of surprise as she realizes, his words had made her smile.   
  
Coy, as her lips curl in a smirk equal to his, she echoes, "I was. In everything but birth, you must remember. I've been many people, Marcus."  
  
She said his name purposefully that time, as if to spite what he said. Breath bare, there were curls in the air between their lips as she exhales, the frost rising with her heat. Still she didn't blink, or drop her smile.   
  
"If we were that intimate," she narrows her eyes but her words are sweet, "I would have thought you'd believe me when I told you I'd fooled everyone. How long did it take you?"   
  
She searches his eyes, intent, and in command of herself at the moment. It had been true the last time she saw him - the occasion he so casually rendered in which they'd tried to kill each other - and it appeared true now. The truth he strove to keep from her was never hidden. A decade to perfect her Seer abilities; though it had been years before she'd had another dream, though she had forced no visions and never intended to again -- she almost didn't need to in the first place, for when she asked a direct question and focused…the answer was plainly granted. As long as she knew the person. As he said, intimately.   
  
Her brow arches as she recounts, "January of that year…well, that's faster than it might have been, I suppose. I would apologize for any offense, as I'm certain the discovery angered you, but frankly, Marcus -- when I stuck that knife in your throat, I wish it killed you."

| Marcus |

“Now that I can believe,” he said easily enough as she professed to being many people. An actress, he would have thought, professional but it was plainly obvious that whatever life she held now, it was far from the faux glamour that came with entertaining a mob of mindless idiots, for the most part. Yet it felt wrong to assign her any specific title whether it was actress, or housewife, or even woman. She didn’t feel like that, she felt beyond everything. And the fact that he used the word ‘felt’, was enough for him to realize that he was entirely out of his element. He dealt in facts now, in figures, that which he could see, and smell, and touch. He could still touch her, and her smell mixed with the fresh snow on the pavement as well as the peppermint hot chocolate she must have had maybe just an hour ago.  
  
And she was playing it; he realized that quickly enough too. Rebecca was not without wit, and she realized in her heart that he was keeping her alive purely out of curiosity. It certainly wasn’t because of any kindness he held for the woman, or any compassion he held in his heart. Compassion was not a word to be taken lightly especially when it was applied to him. It hardly ever made an appearance in his life, and whenever it did, he did not boast of it.  
  
He could feel it in her heartbeat, the fear that was there, a logical response, was quickly being replaced by something else, something much more visceral. He recalled with such ease all of his years as a vampire, and with much more considerable ease, he remembered that day very well. The anger and hatred she had felt then, she felt now. For the better part of that encounter, he had been calm, cold, and cruel until she had touched something so deep inside him that it had taken him weeks inside of that crypt to bury it back in. Yet she had taught him well, Rebecca had. He no longer could pretend as if his past didn’t exist, he embraced it even in his disgust, so that it might never be used against him again.  
  
Age, apart from granting her curves, had also improved her…prowess. The question she spoke, she answered herself. It was still disconcerting to hear the ease with which she acquired it, and the confidence in her voice, that she knew it to be nothing but the certain truth. It was a tone of voice that none could argue it, spoken as if it were a mandate from heaven. Traveling throughout the Earth, he had kept an eye on extraordinary abilities, to see if he could find an explanation for how a woman could know of events that happened a century and a half before he’d met her, but Marcus had found nothing of the sort. Now, another century and a half later, he saw her again, clearly not the desiccated corpse he expected her to be.  
  
His smirk rose again as she admitted to wanting to have killed him with her blow. He believed it easily, even if he could only believe very little of what she said ever again, for the truth was plain in her voice. The want had been there, she just didn’t possess the knowledge to do the deed.  
  
Dropping a hand from beside her head, he took her hand in his, covering completely and then raising easily to his neck. He placed the tip of her fingers where she had stabbed him, holding it there for a few seconds with raised eyebrows before moving her fingers to where they had needed it to be for it to be fatal, just an inch and a half more inward. Well, fatal if he had been human.  
  
“And then you rip it sideways,” he continued to drag her hand across the length of his throat, his voice quiet and instructive, “you’d want me to bleed out. Because then it would give enough time to drive a stake through my heart.” Now he placed her hand on top of his chest, the exact position where his heart was, even if the absence of a pulse prevented Rebecca from verifying that he did indeed have one.    
  
“Though you should probably practice with a few other vampires, before trying to kill me again, Rebecca. There’s a reason I’ve lasted this long.”

| Rebecca | 

The soft hair at the nape of her neck prickled and was standing on end, her breath baited as he takes her hand with his own long, elegant fingers and she clenches down on her teeth. This man was too familiar, she wanted to snap and take her hand back -- wanted to strike him or call for the Aurors, or rather, her husband. Only she couldn't do that, she couldn't do any of it. She'd seen him kill; felt his teeth sink into her neck, seen the bodies of knights littering the ground he'd ripped apart. If she called for the Aurors, it would only be their corpses she saw next ... and God, Rowland, Rowland...  
  
He was toying with her as he had more than a century ago, but there was something different too -- he was less angry, more enthralled. It didn't fool her, even as he drags her fingers to ghost the pale skin at the front of his neck and speaks instructions on how he could kill her. While he took his time with the one hand, her left she buries in her coat pocket, slowly removing her wedding bands, trying not to let her breath gap or heartache be evidence as she felt the absence. It was for the best, she thinks, not at all sure how she could get out of this, what she could do -- but she knew, the last people in the world she wanted Marcus to know still existed as well, were her husband (and her children), and...Jude.   
  
Scratch that, she didn't want Jude to know he was here either.  
  
And why was he here? That question - unlike the direct statement of facts she'd been able to discern was too tied up in motives, too clouded in judgments and she couldn't fathom the inner workings of his cruelty. Or she didn't want to. His lips curled slightly at the corners as he places her hand over his chest, as if he sensed the growing heaviness in her chest. She hesitates, reeling from the lesson and her internal bombardment; all those things she'd tried to bury and forget about as she hoped -- prayed she'd never have to see this monster again. Still, he'd found her, he hadn't seen anyone else...and all those she might yell for help, well. Apart from Damocles, who'd only held his own, there was only one she knew who had bested Marcus solo: herself. Anyone she'd yell to might as well spin back around and ask for her help.  
  
Which she'd happily give if she could fucking breathe, if she could fucking think, if he wasn't smirking down at her as she remains trapped to the wall, breathing near her ear (and why was that, anyway? he didn't need to breathe...) and dancing her own hand to his tune.  
  
Smacking him, that hadn't lost appeal at all. She tugs her hand, trying to free it from his fingers and snaps, breath hot and shallow on a raw, revolving throat, "I never doubted you'd last at least another century. If you recall so vividly, I told you that myself - that if you succeeded in killing me you'd only bury your past for another century, accomplishing nothing."   
  
Goddamn't, his fingers -- lengthy and smooth, like piano players more than the mass murderer she knew him to be -- were strong, and why was it, when she knew how icy his skin was she felt like he was burning under her touch?   
  
"But then, you didn't succeed in killing me, so I doubt you succeeded burying your past either."    
  
She stills her tongue as she thinks: perhaps not the best topic of conversation. Not for her survival rate, in any case; which meant her children would be in danger too. Eyes on his chest where his heart was supposed to be, though she felt nothing, nothing from him but curiosity and death -- intrigue and pain. She snaps her neck back and forth, ignoring how the brick scrapes her skin (at least until she remembers drawing blood was probably not smart either and stills that too).  
  
Eyes on his chest she mutters, "Congratulations, you've discovered time has about as much meaning to me as it does to you. Unlike you however, I still have a beating heart, and you might be unaware of this? But it is below freezing. If you aren't going to bleed me dry on the spot can't we at least discuss somewhere warmer?"   
  
Somewhere she wasn't backed against a dirty alleyway brick wall shivering in a jacket and unable to do more than let him rub snow from her hair and turn her fingers to his own devices? Anywhere, at this point - as she knew flatly the only weapon she had to make use of was her mind, and that started with gaining at least some...some....control here.


	3. A Cuppa.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Let's get a drink, we can catch up." 
> 
> "No, thank you, I prefer my heart beating loudly, rapidly, fervently as opposed to your settling it down catching up."

Marcus had been surprised Rebecca hadn’t started struggling sooner to be completely honest. She was more careful, more cautious now than she had been when they had last squared off and he quickly began to speculate why, coming to a possible conclusion: she had more to lose now. During that battle, those French knights waging war on the knights of Faye, and that dragon high on the sky, there was no way to make sure that anyone would make it out of there alive. Men and women had woken up in the morning knowing that there was a strong possibility that they would not make it back to their families and loved ones by the end of the day. Some hadn’t, and Rebecca was in his company, filled with fury and hatred for the pain that Marcus had brought down upon that court, and so she lashed out, with no care about dying because it was in the heat of the moment.  

There was no battle now, however. This was a normal day, a relatively peaceful day in the dirty and grungy London downtown, and she was feeling the weight of what she could lose very heavily on her heart. Rebecca was less inclined to anger him, and more willing to lead him along, buying time, because she still thought he was going to kill her. Marcus still hadn’t decided he wouldn’t, because of the information she knew about him and the other information she would be able to obtain just as easily if she placed the full brunt of her concentration into it, but simultaneously, killing her would just be admitting that everything that she’d said to him and about him so long ago still stood true today. In some ways it did, but Marcus had long learned to quench his constant bloodlust.  

Ignoring how her free hand entered her pocket, probably to grab for her wand but oddly enough the hand left the pocket as slowly as it entered it, entirely bare. It didn’t take more than the slightest of gazes down, for a brief second, to gather the information. He released her other hand as well, but not the hold on her eyes as she spoke of that night. His gaze held hers captive, tilting his head in curiosity as her sanity slipped for a brief moment before he decided, well, why not share?  

“No, I haven’t, not very successfully, so I stopped trying 75 years ago, give or take a few years.”

If she knew him as well as she was claiming to, if it was within her abilities to discern the truth from him, then she’d know the statement he offered to be just that, the truth.  Taking the next words she spoke with a pinch of amusement, for how much meaning did time really hold to him? It was, actually, meaningless to him because it was never ending, it was infinite, if he kept playing his cards right. How could time have the same meaning to her? There was a key, something missing from this puzzle that would shed light on this entire riddle but no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t seem to grasp it and what was more frustrating was that he knew it was right under his nose. This was not conspiratorial; it probably even wasn’t grand; there was an explanation for this, if only he could divine it.  

For a moment she was breathless entirely -- breath literally could not enter her lungs as she tracks a glint in his eyes and she was sure -- reminding him of all she knew (all she'd never wanted to know), that had sealed her fate. Then he tilts his head and ... told her the truth. Her head spun again and she thought: perhaps she was hallucinating, perhaps he had given her head injury after all. It seemed the kind of thing Marcus would do; toy with someone's thoughts and perception of reality until...maybe she should stop; if he could use Legilimency or read her half as well as she could him, Rebecca rather not give him ideas.   
  
At least he'd let her hands go.   
  
And she was triumphant. She'd told him he wouldn't be able to forget forever -- told him flat that he was in for endless suffering, worse than any whose life he'd ended, and that she would cheer about it and rejoice...and now that she actually had a moment to see she was right, as a pang strikes her chest she thinks (she justifies): it would be pointless to anger him again when you've already proven right. So all she does is nod, a tiny bit, a jerk of her head accepting his factual statement and forcing water into her dry eyes by blinking rapidly.

She was right though, he certainly didn’t want her to freeze. Was it really that cold? He barely felt it, he barely felt anything. Taking a step back, he inclined his head and then offered his arm again, mocking.

“Let’s go get a drink, a public place if it’ll make your heart settle down. We can catch up.”  
  
He was still staring at her like she was a crossword puzzle, with a little furrow in his lips she hoped (did she truly?) was amusement and delight at a challenge rather than the smirk he'd get before fangs came out. As he finally steps back she lets out another breath of relief she'd forgotten she took, and then slips sideways; if she'd just stepped forward, all she'd do is find herself walking right back into his grasp.   
  
The abruptly playful words make her eyes narrow with suspicion. She can't help but ask, shrewd.

"A drink? No thank you, I'd prefer my heart beating loudly, rapidly, and fervently to your settling it down drinking."

Now that almost made him laugh with an amusement that wasn’t entirely malicious. It was only natural to think that he meant her blood, because he was after all a vampire and she wasn’t bound to forget it, not when he was so pale, so cold, and so still like the frozen, walking, talking, corpse that he was. “I meant whiskey, Rebecca. I do still enjoy alcohol,” he explained after he allowed a chuckle to pass through his lips. “Though if you’re offering. . .” she wasn’t, that much was plain in her eyes, the way that her gaze drifted to his mouth and the exposed teeth as if she expected them at any moment to grow into fangs that were designed perfectly for ripping into her lovely alabaster neck.

  “I thought not.”

Swaying with her eyes stuck on his open, curling lips she can't restrain a shiver at his "teasing" remark of clarification. Oh, her bad. She forgot ripping a person's throat open was something to joke about. Clearing her own at the thought with an anxious press of her free hand to her it, she rubs harshly, trying to forget how she missed her ring without alluding to it.

 _God_ , Rebecca swears internally, _catch up -- how quaint_. There's a wiggle in her throat as she shivers her way through realizing she'd actually won (again, two in one minute, this had to be a record -- actually, just looking at him, she knew it was and the knowledge made her heart shudder again). She had though, won. He was acquiescing and a public place did at least mean she wasn't in danger of immediate death...  
  
But where could she go, that she wasn't potentially running the risk of seeing her husband and children? They were shopping in the same plaza -- come to think of it, she thought Rowland had promised them ice cream, because evidently Blair did not realize the fact it was about four degrees outside (she never had been able to convert to Celsius) and Alec was 'just doing what his little sister wanted' of course. Rebecca turns her eyes away as she grasps her own hands, fidgeting as she tries to clear her mind of them -- but how could she, when she wasn't sure she'd ever see her family again? When she wasn't even capable of figuring out if she wanted to if all it meant was dying moments after alerting Marcus exactly who they were, so they died too? There was another reason she hadn't been killed yet, a latent voice in her mind pokes noisily: death would be too simple. All she'd done to a man who leveled towns for no reason beyond "he was bored"...what would he do when he did figure her out?  
  
No, she couldn't go anywhere in this square, not if it meant tipping her families hand. Eyes on his arm she nods, decided and takes it abruptly, because she knows it will surprise him and because she has every urge to try and force him to side apparate -- at least until she remembers he's at least three times as strong. As a cement block. Frustrated, and not bothering to try and hide it when she knew he'd hear the upticks in her breath, her lungs, her heart -- she looks up and says flatly,

"Anywhere but London."

  She had made no comment on his revelation, probably thinking to herself that she had been right from the beginning. And she was, he’d never be able to forget it, but what she hadn’t anticipated, and what she probably still didn’t quite comprehend, was how driving a force that would be behind his actions. He turned his weakness into a strength, as much as he could, because no one else would reach him the same way that Rebecca had, they wouldn’t.

  The warm hand on top of his forearm was a surprise, having expecting her to apparate away from him. Could it be that she was similarly interested in learning of what he had been up to in this past century, or that she couldn’t risk running away from him because she knew that to a predator, the chase was the more alluring part of the hunt, much more than the actual catch? It could be neither, it could be both, but either way, she was agreeing to it. Barely registering her attempt to move him, he only exhaled and then turned his head to look at her again, eyebrows raised in a simple question: ‘really?’

His eyebrows arch at her as she tries to move them, but Rebecca simply straightens her back and cocks both eyebrows back to answer as sweetly and silently as he had: problem?   
  
Hilarious, really, when she considered the size of the problem...s, plural, really with his reappearance. She intended on, the moment they landed wherever they went - getting a message to Rowland, telling him to get the children home. Of course she knew the moment she did he was going to come after her, but while Marcus was busy scouring London for her they could pack up in Liverpool and scoot. And yes Rowland, that might mean getting on a plane to New York...

She quickly realized moving him was out of the question. It was a long stretch to call it free choice though, when they both knew she was stuck between a rock and a hard place, in this case a wall and himself.   Not London was her request. An odd one, no doubt, and he was more willing to accept the explanation that there was someone she was determined to keep him away from. Rowland, if he were a wagering man, he would say that man. After all, they had disappeared together, it only made sense that they would still be together. After all, they claimed a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Marcus, wanted to call a brief foul there, gaining amusement from the technicality, because it was probably closer to two lifetimes now in matter of years, he meant. 

“Fine by me,” he ended the answer with a turn of his heels, pressing them in the long narrow tube that was traveling by apparation when they landed outside a pub somewhere in Edinburgh. Marcus couldn’t place the location exactly on a map, for sometimes he just walked and walked until he reached somewhere that caught his eye, but he did know that while public, it was certainly a place she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew, and one with a ward that prevented apparating from inside. Whether this was for her sake or for his benefit, it didn’t really matter at the moment.

He continued walking, not missing a step as he walked out of the side road and onto the sidewalk, reaching the door and passing through it with Rebecca’s arm still holding on to his. Inside, he headed for a table right in the middle; booths and secluded corners just invited eavesdroppers, even with the fact it was busy today with people trying to avoid the cold.  
  
The thought is pressed along with her breath into non-existence as he squeezes them through the tube and into open air...in Scotland, if that accent was any indication. Well. She had just been thinking about leaving the country. Was it that easy to get him to leave the country? If she just kept asking for different locations and strung the mystery along long enough, could she get him to Asia or across the Indian Ocean at least? It -- ah -- he moved with his usual speed, she saw, trying to swallow the gasp of surprise and tiniest squint of pain as he nearly tugged her arm out of its socket when he landed and kept moving without missing a step. Shepherding her right into the center of the pub, she finally frees her arm and rubs her elbow when she hears his question.

“Tell me, does our dear Rowland happen to be alive with you as well?"


	4. The Little Birdie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How'd you know?"
> 
> (Don't you know by now? A little birdie told me...)

She'd been expecting it; that was the only reason she thought she might manage to keep her heart steady, expecting him to name family members and loved ones and all those who he might just casually happen to drop in on -- and murder. Our dear, really she thinks bitterly -- as if he he hadn't threatened his life on multiple occasions, once before she'd even...no she shouldn't think about the specifics; she still wasn't sure he couldn't see the answers in her eyes or mind. Unbuttoning her jacket instead, she fluffs her hair out (and tries to free the tangle of snow in it lest he get any more bright ideas of taking care of it for her), settling the (faux) fur and black-Aline coat on the back of the chair and shaking her head.

"I was promised a drink of whiskey."  
  
She says by way of answering his question, and sits in the chair he provided, folding her arms on the table. She was wearing a tight-fit cashmere sweater, maroon over her dark-wash jeans, ensemble made "complete" according to her friend by the silver loop belt Kim gave her last Christmas.  
  
“And you shall have it,” he motioned for one of the waitresses to approach them with his hand, receiving a nod in return.

Both of her eyebrows skyrocket again, wrong-footed and disconcerted in how easily he went along with her request. Honestly, was drinking smart? If the only weapon she had against this man -- a man she'd seen laughing as he forced men to murder their families, seen rip people apart in misguided justice from throat to groin -- was her mind...clouding it with alcohol seemed a singularly bad idea.   
  
So did refusing him.  
  
He always had loved just oh-so-much forcing people to make choices with the ace of spades up his sleeve.  She bit her tongue, indenting teeth deep in her own flesh as if to prove that only she got to do that and forces out a simple,

"Thank you."  
  
Rebecca's eyes flash as she says it. Gratitude to a killer was not her preferred sentiment to express. A murderous, vicious monster who was not content it seemed, to either disappear nor snap her neck. Though if Rebecca was honest...he never had. Her eyes downcast with a flutter in her breath. Nightmares had plagued her since childhood, but something strange had happened after she'd forced herself to see into his life, into his past and being, yearning -- desperate -- aching to hurt him as he hurt her. Surviving the night had left her nights and dreams happy for the first time in a year. Yet when she started Seeing again, slowly reading about it and meeting with a few others to see what it was she could actually do -- she still slept fine. Better even, much better. No more visions, no more panic-attacks -- she always had thought it was Rowland in her bed that left her sleep comfortably.   
  
Except for normal nightmares, the kind every-one on the planet plagued with guilt experiences however justified their hatred or actions -- and Marcus' eyes had been there when she closed her own for years. Telling someone would only have made it worse; she was happy dammit, they had won -- she wasn't going to drag up the past just because Marcus seemed stuck in her head. Ninety nine percent of the time she could ignore it, utterly forget about it -- there were just things, little things, that would remind her of that night and her hatred, her anger, her remorse and fear would all settle again in the throat he'd tried to rip apart. Things like him showing up after more than a decade and shoving her up against an alleyway wall.

His eyes quickly returned to Rebecca however, not willing to let her out of his sight for too long. Instead of it being to keep her from escaping, as she could leave whenever she pleased of course though he had yet to say that out loud, it was in hopes of picking up on something, anything, that would give a clue as to how she was still alive now and looking as if she hadn’t aged more than a decade or so.  

He had never thought Rebecca particularly gifted. Marcus had been impressed, yes, when she along with her lover, well now the correct term would be boyfriend, discovered Claudia’s identity and intentions all by themselves. Yet besides that, before Rebecca had seen fit to lay his entire life’s past in front of him, he hadn’t thought her of any extraordinary skill except perhaps resilience and stubbornness but those were hardly skills as much as they were traits. And yet, he had severely misjudged the woman. She seemed to be particularly apt at evading death, as it seemed. Now the ‘how’, that was the part that interested him, much more than the ‘why’ though he couldn’t deny he was also curious and interested in learning the motive here.  

Shifting her purse from her shoulder, she's an inch from setting it down when he looks away to signal the waitress and she thinks -- her phone was in the bag. She sets it between her fingers on the table instead, gripping the laces to steady and anchor herself. Before she could go for the phone, his eyes were back on her. He hadn't ceased looking at her for more than an instant, like he thought he could puzzle the answer out from her eyes alone. Narrowing them, she tenses to still shivers in her spine and speaks bluntly.

"You can keep looking, but sorry honey, I'm the only one at this table who can divine answers from staring." However...intent a stare it was. He was leaning forward on the table too, and she twists her fingers around the strap, determined not to break his gaze even as she thinks -- if she could just -- Twitter was already open on her phone ...

“I suppose,” he agreed with a soft nod of his head, not making it apparent that if he really wanted too, the information could be obtained from her with a variety of Legilimency spells and techniques but that just seemed a little rude. Though in her eyes, he was not only rude and discourteous, but also vile, despicable, loathsome and murderous. She wasn’t wrong and he had no intention in proving her otherwise, but it was hardly all he was. And she knew that, of course she knew it and still hated him despite it all. Of course she did, after all he had done to her, to her friends. Yet, some would say that it has been a century and a half since the events; more than enough time to let bygones be bygones. At least, it had been that long for him, he didn’t know exactly how much time she might have experienced.

Her arms rest beneath her chest, straightening her sleeve before she looks back at him, adding as she watches the waitress walk towards them, "And I think it's safe to say even when I have it, your gathering the names of people I may or may not be in contact with, who may or may not be alive, because I may or may not love them so that you may or may not kill them -- is not a topic I'm willing to discuss, Marcus. But I will take that whiskey."

And she cocks both eyebrows back at him, breathing steadier in the crowded pub and looking steadily at him as if to say: _yes, really._

“There are a lot of conditional clauses in that one sentence,” he noted with interest, knowing she was burying herself under a tangle of words in an attempt to distance herself from him. It was almost admirable, if what she feared was probable and it wasn’t, it was simply possible. Explaining the difference between the two, however, would have been difficult so instead he chuckled and then shook his head.  

He crossed his fingers to join his hands together and then lay them on the table before speaking, “Rebecca, I have no intention in killing you or any of your loved ones that you may or may not have.” Mass killing for sport had lost its appeal somewhere around the early 30’s. And granted, if he did choose to kill Rebecca it wouldn’t be for sport as much as to get even, but the point still stood in his mind. “But fair enough, you don’t wish to discuss it, but I think it only fair to inform you that I can and will find out on my own. I’m a curious creature.”

"Oh no?"   
  
Her heart skips along it's merry way of playing jumping jacks, she thinks, at his statement and she raises her eyebrow slowly, leaving white crescents in her skin as her nails dig into the back of pink, exposed forearm. "I suppose that I must have been confused by your stealing me off a street, throwing me against a wall and spiriting us both out of the country."   
  
Her words were curt with feigned amusement and mockery, "However did I misunderstand?" 

“I could have killed you right then,” he reminded her casually, as if it needed reminder when the truth of it was settled on top of her shoulders like a heavy weight. Nevertheless, she must have been surprised. He had, after all. It had surprised him that his first reaction upon seeing her hadn’t been to grab her by the throat and squeeze, watching her round blue eyes fill with terror and widen with the knowledge that his face would be her last memory, only to have her close her eyes in stubbornness, to think of whatever it was that represented happiness for her now. She’d tried to do that already, after all, and had only stopped when she realized he wasn’t moving to kill her.  
  
There was no desire now to throttle the life out of her, or to watch her body’s vital essence drip onto the snow covered pavement below them, staining it an offensive and bright red. Even if he was one not to spill a single drop of blood, that was not the reason that he didn’t wish it to leave her neck. Such a blast from the past this was, and just when he was complaining about London. Of course, this would mean missing his meeting but he could easily reschedule.

"Physically? I suppose." Speaking as casually as him, her words were quick or else she'd betray how breathy she was. That was foolish. She knew that, because he could hear her heart rate, could literally feel the warmth radiating from her skin and inhale her breath and so of course -- he knew she was choking on his casual manner.

But just because he knew it didn't mean she had to show it.  
  
The waitress approached them with a smile and a flutter in her heart, asking them for their order.   

“A glass of Tasliker on the rocks for me. Rebecca, what’s your brand of preference?”   
  
She opens her mouth about to add that he could look all he damn pleased when a waitress appeared, smiling and she straightens her back again, snapping her jaw shut. Breathy and off-balance she shakes her head, forcing another smile to her lips as she nods to the waitress -- lest she betray what was happening to her and he saw fit to take her to another country. Lifting her hand from her arm she waves her off, still smiling,

"Yes--that's," she breathes, "That's fine, thank you."

Ignoring Rebecca’s fumble with her purse, he watched the waitress walk away with a minimum amount of interest, only look back towards his companion as she addresses him pointedly. Her eyes were deliberately focused on his, trying to draw him in, and he was all too willing to comply. While he did not make a move to inch forward, no movement whatsoever besides the small tapping of his shoe against the floor (normal people fidgeted, they never lay completely still, and if he did he would look too…dead, so he mimicked human mannerisms), his interest seemed to leap off his body to follow hers. She wouldn’t tell him anything, but it wasn’t frustrating him. This too, surprised him, perhaps even more than the simple fact he hadn’t killed her on sight. His hatred of her hadn’t diminished, he realized. He still hated her, hated her for making him act like this, like someone he had no control over.

Oh, damn her.

  
Her eyes hood as her gaze lands on her purse again as her hand falls back to her arm. She won't look up until the server has gone. All she adds is, "You can try to find out, but Marcus," and now she casts her gaze to his, blue eyes locking with equal intent as she tucks a single, black curl behind her ear finishes in a quieter voice.

"Doesn't this seem to be between just the two of us?"  
  
He didn’t reply to her, merely kept staring at her and staring until the waitress came back with their drinks. He tore his gaze away then to smile at the girl, a soft and kind smile and that pretended to be genuine to the best of his abilities.  
  
“Thank you, luv.” He moved forward in his seat to reach for the leather wallet he kept in his back pocket. Looking down, he moved his fingers at the appropriate human pace (to him it was slow, as was doing anything among humans) until he took out a twenty pound note and held it out to her, and with a wink he spoke.   
  
“Keep the change.”  
  
He wanted to leave an impression on the young waitress, especially since she smelled so delectable, so he might drop by another day when he was looking to feed. Taking a small sip of his drink after swirling it in his glass, he brought his gaze back to Rebecca, eyebrows raised.

“It would seem that way, Rebecca,” he finally replied. “Yet things are rarely as they seem with you, you’ll understand if I seem cautious.” That was almost laughable: Marcus, the vampire, the predator, cautious around a mere human. Yet, he reminded himself idly, Rebecca had already proven to be more than just a mere human.

Her gaze trailed across his neck as she tries not to think how her fingers had just done the same thing and snapped back up to his eyes when she failed. Still narrow, she continues in a lower murmur as he just stares -- and stares, and stares, reminding her uncomfortably of his infinite patience.  
  
"I seem to recall the last time you tried to kill me, you know, it didn't end well for you. Physical ability is one thing -- but that isn't why you couldn't. You hate that I know what I do, but you hate something else more -- something I need to be alive for. You hate that you don't know how."

Now she leans in, just a hair, just a touch because doing so pushes her chest over the purse in front of her and lets her slip her hand inside it even as she kept talking, echoing his earlier words,

"Come on now Marcus, we both know you won't kill me. After all, we are that intimate."  
  
And she does know that she realizes almost suddenly; abruptly. For all her skittishness, her uncomfortable sensitivity around this man, she wasn't afraid of him. Not at the moment, not now he had stared down at her with her arms pressed uselessly to her side and then chose to do nothing. Whatever this connection was, however it might be defined and however much she might not be able to think the word "connection" in relation to Marcus Ellwood without wanting to vomit -- it seemed as long as it existed, she was safe. Gratitude, again.   
  
She just meets his stare falling silent and steadying, breathing slower and fuller -- not blinking until he turns to the waitress. Her hand already in her purse, already closed around the hard cellular box, her gaze flutters between his lingering glances at the girl while paying and her own hand. The LCD screen seemed extraordinarily bright to her in the dark bag, and she didn't bother with punctuation or full words -- just moved her thumb as fast as she possibly could to spell out ten letters -- just ten, M-A-R-C-U-S-R-I-L-Y, ten characters that she could broadcast to all her friends, to those who would look and understand and get her children home, her family to safety. Marcus R Ily. Marcus -- Marcus Ellwood, he was the reason she was not meeting her husband and children for ice cream, the reason her shopping bags had been abandoned on the sidewalk and trampled over. R, for Rowland, because Marcus had already turned back from winking and she couldn't keep writing further -- but she jots Ily anyway, even if it was foolish, because she had to tell him, in case it was the last chance she ever got to tell him, I love you. Send.  
  
Her hand falls to her breath mints instead and she pulls one out, unraveling the tinfoil as the screen goes dead, and pops it in her mouth. Her eyes stay locked on Marcus' as he finally responds, and she finds a small smile on her lips. 

“Is there anything you are willing to discuss or must you keep yourself wrapped in a veil of mystery for the entirety of our conversation?”

"Cautious?" She echoes his word choice finding it laughable -- indeed a chuckle graces her words at the back of a raw throat. Sucking on the mint idly, she pulls her purse back and lets it land beside her leg -- if her feed exploded as she thought it might, Marcus would have the ability to see the light only too well. Taking her glass and slipping her fingers around it, her smile curls as she picks it up, miming a small toast to her own words,

"Why Marcus, you aren't admitting you're afraid of me, are you?"


	5. Girl Code.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MARCUS - a name.  
> I L Y - I, love you.  
> R - Rowland.
> 
> ILY, my husband.  
> ILY, because it's true.  
> ILY, in case it's the last time I ever get to tell you.
> 
> (no, it fucking wasn't.)

**Nate:** *Hearing a little "bleep!", he looks around, and sighs seeing it's Kim's computer. Shaking his head to dispel his curiosity, he returns to the blueprint. Thin white pencil in hand, he replaces his glasses and leans over it, muttering,* Oh it's just one little decimal point, yeah yeah, just one little decimal point between thousands and millions of barometric pressure--*freezes hearing it go again and huffs as he accidentally smudges his own decimal points. Hm.

Surveying, he muses thoughtfully,* ...This is what I get for being smug. *Curiosity getting he better of him (anything to make it stop beeping), he pauses as he looks at the bouncing icon. A click later, his brow furrows and he calls,* Hey baby? Are you and Becks tweeting in code again?

 **Kim:** *Yelling back from kitchen, balanced reaching for her coffee filters,* What's that? 

**Nate:** What's M-A-R-C-U-S-R-I-L-Y mean? *He pauses hearing a commotion. His lips flick, brushing his thumb against his nose as he waits a moment and adds,* You all right?

 **Kim:** *Pulling the coffee filter off her hair and stepping over the dropped pot, she picks it up and hurries into the room, brows furrowed.* Yeah. Hold on say that again? 

**Nate:** *points at the screen* M-A-R--

 **Kim:** *Leaning over and her eyes snap wide,* Holy fuck.

 **Nate:** ...so it's a bad thing then?

 **Kim:** *scrolling the feed rapidly she hisses and squeaks,* Oh babe. Use that big science brain of yours, yes it's bad!

 **Nate:** *Inconsequentially,* You know how people say "it's not rocket science" to say something--

 **Kim** : Babe.

 **Nate** : I'm just saying, I actually am a rocket scientist.

 **Kim:** Who can't read Becca's tweets. *typing to it as fast as possible, over his shoulder.*

 **Nate:** Yes but I can code nuclear missles, so in perspective--

 **Kim:** *hits send, points at screen* Marcus. Not M-A-R...blahblah, Marcus.  

 **Nate:** What's Ma--*pauses, going rigid and with dawning comprehension.* Wait isn't--the vampire wh--.... oooooooh.

 **Kim:** *with him, flapping her hand in the air,* Ooooh.

 **Nate:** That is bad. *in casual, British understatement*

 **Kim:** *grabs his cheeks, kisses his forehead* Call Rowland. I assume he's seen it, but if he hasn't tell him, and tell him we'll take the kids. *In a flurry, throwing her jumper on.*

 **Nate:** Right, yes. *Snappily, digging his cell out.* And you...-

 **Kim:** *already dialing,* I'm calling Jude.

 **Nate:** *tiniest hiss but nods,* You know if we get in contact with her phone company they can triangulate her gps with her phone, her iPod--

 **Kim** : *Flaps hand,* Babe, talk faster!

 **Nate** : They can give us her location. 

**Kim:** Do it. 

**Nate:** Yeah but we'll need her account number-

 **Kim:** *On phone,* I know. Hun, bring Patti here. Yes. Yes, we will watch h--I'm sure, yes. Tell Jess I am locking the alcohol and nuclear codes. *listening* Baby, she won't kill him before you get a chance too--

 **Nate:** *While she's talking, he's typing on his computer and muttering to himself,* Actually I bet Pamela either has it or can get around the company...

 **Kim** : *Snapping phone shut, she hisses.* Little son of a cunt, Ellwood is.

 **Nate:** Babe? *hit send*

 **Kim:** Yes?

 **Nate** : You going to get properly dressed?

 **Kim** : *Looks at her jumper, bra and tights and chuckles once,* Right! Bastard! Interrupting our evening.

 **Nate** : *As she hurries as he's dialing on the phone, asks a bit hesitantly,* Hun?

 **Kim** : *Pauses at the door, turns back with her eyebrow arched,* Mm?

 **Nate:** R-I-L-Y?

 **Kim:** *Stilling, a shade of fear crosses her expression. She nods. Her words were serious, and quieter.* Rowland, I love you.

 **Nate:** *Somber, he hisses, throat abruptly raw as he says as if he already knows.* She's saying goodbye. 

**Kim** : *Her jawline hardens as she nods and then jerks her head up, hissing,* Yeah, and when we find her I'mma smack her for not including a K. Chopped liver I've been, ever since she met Rowland! *Flustered and with a shallow, forced laugh and smile.*

 **Nate** : *Chuckles and then as she spins and flies out, he hits another button on the keyboard, he calls out too,* I'm just saying, actual nuclear missles! From space! *As the phone picks up, he immediately grows serious,* Hey--Rowland mate, breathe, of course you can bring them here--

&.

It was a miracle that Rowland was still alive; after all, he had just had a heart attack. Maybe not a literal heart attack, but it was as literal as he imagined it would ever be. He had been waiting in the ice cream shop for Rebecca (because Blair, his precious angel, didn’t care that it was a negative temperature, she would have her frozen treat and there was no one that would stop her), thinking that maybe she got held up at one of the toy stores and that she was going home to hide the presents before meeting up with them as Rowland had done before picking up the kids from school.

Rowland was a worrier, he worried, that was what he did but he tried not to especially because his children were uniquely intuitive for whenever something was bothering him. That, and Rowland still couldn’t manage a straight-faced and outwardly obvious lie. His face was too honest, many people liked to tell him yet Rowland only thought it as an asset, for people were more likely to buy a home or an apartment from someone they believed they could trust and who wouldn’t trust his face? He had recently made a sell to that charming young couple after all. Yet now his face was not one of trust, but of hesitance, and after trying and failing again to get Rebecca on her mobile, he took the kids out of the ice cream shop, because if there was one thing Rowland hated, it was waiting with nothing to do.

His screen buzzed again when they were walking, one of his hands holding onto Blair’s tiny one, but as he opened his twitter and read the message that Rebecca had just posted, he had to drop her hand otherwise he was sure he might have broken it from squeezing too hard. Marcus Ellwood. Because that was the only Marcus they had ever met, and the only Marcus that had ever mattered. Marcus bleeding Ellwood hadn’t perished after all these years, and had come back to England, taking Rebecca away again. He shivered but he knew it had nothing to do with the cold or the snow. His daughter next to him was asking him what was wrong, but he couldn’t look down, he couldn’t let him see the fear in his eyes…he couldn’t let her see the anger in his eyes.

Everyone on his feed was going haywire, and he was typing messages as quickly as he could- to Pam, to Kim, to Rebecca herself though it was unlikely that she would answer back. The message had been so short, so concise, as if it had taken her entire ability to be able to get out those 10 letters. Marcus. R. Ily. R, R was him, he knew it the same way he knew everything about her or the same way he knew that the Earth would rotate tilted on its axis until the very end. Ily was an acronym that he had learned the very first week he had ever traveled with Rebecca to the future, to his now present. Ily meant I love you, and she was saying it in case she couldn’t ever again, in case it was the very last time.

No it fucking wasn’t.

Dad was white. Like worse than the time she covered him in Mom’s make-up when they were playing clowns and then Uncle Jude snapped a picture and it was laminated and all over his desk for a week, and she didn’t understand — all he’d done was get his phone out. She squeezes Alec’s hand back the moment he takes it, though if there was a reason he was willingly submitting to her hugs…

“Daddy, what is it?” Why did only Alec get a cell phone?! She wanted to see too. She wasn’t even mad anymore that she’d dropped her ice cream cone — Blair just hopped up on her toes with the poise that she’d been training so hard for weeks to see if she could be allowed en pointe in two years instead of three, tugging on her brother’s shoulder and looking over it. He closed the phone with a snap, and she pouts - but she saw it anyway. Her eyes went wide.

“Mark-us,” she said slowly, and then looks around at her Dad in surprise as she hears the name drop from her own lips. Oh! That sounded familiar. And she assumed that it was Dad she was saying she loved — she felt proud that she knew what “ILY” meant, but that wasn’t the point at the moment…

Rowland snapped back to reality hearing his daughter mention that monster’s name and then pocketed his phone before turning to Blair and then picking up her up quickly, unable to keep from squeezing her. His next gaze was on Alec, who looked alarmed and for a minute, Rowland regretted having bought him that cell phone. But he only nodded and moved closer to him, as Rowland walked towards an alley where they could apparate safely. Kim had said she would take the kids with Nate, so that’s where he would go.

“Mum’s not coming to get ice cream, okay sweetheart? I’m going to go pick her up- Alec, keep up.” But there was no need to say it, his eldest was right there, next to both of them protectively, holding on to his jacket first but then as they stop again before disapparating, he lets go to hold on to Blair instead, to comfort his sister in a way that Rowland at that moment was failing.

“Daddy, why is Mommy tweeting about your stories?”

In less than fifteen seconds he had scooped her in his arms and she squeaks, startling and slipping her arms around his neck. He speaks quickly, but all her dad said was that Mum wasn’t coming to get ice cream and calls her sweetheart and kisses her forehead desperately: Dad was scared. Really scared.

Blair shivers. But more than that, he was angry…

“I don’t understand, why doesn’t Mum want ice cream? Why did she say Marc—”

“Baby, let me concentrate, please” the last thing he needed was getting splinched right at this moment so he needed to think, breathe in and out, calm down, and focus on his destination, having to remind himself that it wasn’t Rebecca, not right then, first to Nate and Kim’s.

His chest compressed almost painfully while they were traveling but quickly released again, only for Rowland to find that it wasn’t the apparating as much as it was how his heart seemed to not beat and yet never had it been faster in his life.

He tells her to let him think, so she shushes and just snuggles closer to him, but all he really seems to do is gather breath and force it into his lungs. Alec’s hand closes around her ankle and that makes her feel better, a little. Her brother wasn’t going to let anything happen. And neither would Dad. They disapparated and she squeezes closer to him, hugging tightly, and then recognizes where they are with a brighter giggle, even when he sets her down and she just takes Alec’s hand, quivering on the door step.

(Aunt Kim’s house always had chips though, so there was that.)

Setting Blair down, Rowland sees his children reach for each other’s hands, a strong unit. Because that was his family, a unit, bound in strength, and no psychotic vampire was going to mess that up, not after all this time, and not after everything they had gone through. Kim had answered the door with Adair and Erin right beside her, ushering them in, and Rowland quickly thanked her before she just shushed him because of course she would.

The kids ran in, all except Alec who seemed to take a second look back at his father and so Rowland called to him, to talk to him a little privately while Nate continued to talk to Pam about the location.

“Hey, everything’s going to be alright okay? Your uncle Jude and I are going to bring mum back, you just keep an eye on your sister.” Alec nodded, saying he would, because it was his duty as big brother and Rowland kissed his forehead. Taking a moment to marvel at his son, he sends him off with the other kids while he went over to talk to Nate quickly. Coordinates, address, a smoke signal, he would take anything right now and he got it- the name of the pub, thanks to Pamela.

He would have to remind himself later to get her a chocolate basket or something akin to that, but right now he had to leave.


	6. I, More Intimate Than You.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or: Anything you can do, I can do better.

He smirked at the brazen way she spoke of the last time he’d tried to kill her. The confidence was expected, even if it was forced, because that was her preferred method of defense, at least with him. But, could one really discuss what is preferred when they had that minimum of one interaction between the two of them alone? Quality, not quantity he supposed, to put it in laymen’s terms though he was still up in the air over what side of the spectrum of ‘quality’ it truly was.

She made a very good point, he did hate her. Well, she didn’t say that he hated her, just that he hated what she knew but oh no, now he hated the woman entirely, and apparently not entirely enough to drink her dry. But did he hate that he didn’t know how? Hate was a particularly strong word. He was bothered, irked, and intrigued on the how, but did he hate that he didn’t have a single clue. He was usually so good at deduction. Yet, here she was, Rebecca Cowen, a woman who had been present in the year 1884, found again in the year 2026, only aged a decade, maybe two decades at most. She knew things about him with a simple ‘stare’ though he doubted that was the extent of it, but she wasn’t invading his mind.

He was stumped.

“I haven’t been afraid in a very long time. I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like,” he took a sip of his drink as he watched her smile with no genuine mirth, just small amusement forced upon by a change of perspective. For if she was no longer frightened, she couldn’t very well act like it.

Swallowing both mint and a sip of whiskey that burns too hot on a throat icy from the conversation, she smacks her lips. How about that, she thinks as she chuckles the tiniest bit and follows her own movement -- slow, this time, lowering the glass back to the wood and leaning on it. 

“I more intimate than you,” he clarified easily, thinking of the fact that at least half of the time he was with Claudia, she was still disguised to look like the woman in front of him. Yet he said nothing of it, didn’t even register a smirk because again, that would be rude.

His simple clarification made her smile. How he wanted that to be true, she thought with a tiny sigh and--actually scratch that, how they both wanted that to be true. How long had she cursed her own knowledge, the abilities she called curse and gift equally, loved and loathed, used and hated so intensely? It would be simpler, so much simpler, if she had never learned of any of it: had been muggle as Kim was, had lived in one timeline. A shiver trails up her spine. She thinks: How easy it is to glorify simplicity when complexity is all you've ever been given, and yet. Would she ever have been content limited?   
  
No, a tiny truthful voice in her mind parrots, strong against the loud dissent from her beating heart. And besides, then I would never have met Rowland. And of all the things she had seen and done in this psychotically enchanted life of hers, the only thing she had ever found to be impossible was the thought that she was "never" meant to know and be with Rowland.

The waitress commanded his attention for all of 10 seconds, and in that time, Rebecca kept fumbling in her purse. He caught it at the end, the tap, tap, tap of her fingers. Cell phone, he deduced, sending a message for help.

He could easily tell her they were switching locations now, make her leave her purse behind, so they couldn’t trace the thing (muggle technology; what a handy tool it had become) but that would assume he was trying to kidnap her and he wasn’t. Rebecca had said not London, so he had taken her out of London, at her own request. He would have had no problem staying in the vicinity. It was settled then, here they would remain, until the bodyguards descended.

His remark makes her think if she didn't give him something than he would shortly find less...pleasurable ways to try and get the information out of her so she tries to think of something she could tell him. Well. The tweet would be read by Rowland...Kim, Jude, Jess, Brandin, possibly even Nate...her own personal cavalry, she thinks, momentarily amused as she thinks she might hear trumpets blasting with William Tell orchestra at any second. Her gaze flicks back up to his, thumbnail striking the glass.   
  
"Rowland is still alive." She answers without preamble to his insulting insinuation. "And he's my husband."

“Is he? Splendid. Congratulations on your marriage.”

And that was why he’d said it had only seemed that this was between the two of them because it was knowledge learned a century ago that wherever Rebecca went, Rowland quickly followed. He remembered their goodbye to each other before he took her away into the forest quite well.

Rebecca continues without having apparently heard him.

"He's not the only one -- Jude is." Her tongue flicks a stray drop of whiskey from the corner of her smirk, buries in the lip's crease as she stares him back.

"Speaking of people who want you dead."

Yet Rowland was certainly from that time, he had lived in that meager town all of his life. Jude –he had to take a moment to recall who Jude was- was more of a mystery, more like Rebecca but not anywhere near as fascinating. Yet they were all still alive.

“Technically, I’m already dead,” he reminded her, a finger raised off his glass to point at her before smirking and taking another sip, sighing. It didn’t do the job as effective as blood did but it was good enough.

I, more intimate than you, Marcus had said, blunt even if he refrains from a smirk and made no other comment. Rebecca only shakes her head and echoes his softer, easy tone,

"Physically, again."   
  
Though, frankly, it was physically repulsive to her that he did know of her that way -- and she tells herself mentally it wouldn't have been exactly the same, for Polyjuice did not translate thoughts or love or consciousness, and without those things, sex would be empty. Physically pleasing, she supposed (because of course she would be), but empty and sad. It fit. With him, Marcus Ellwood, three hundred years old and yet for all of it, so infantile in his understanding of those deeper things (perhaps, if he didn't try to kill them all off at first notice) -- the description simply fit.   
  
She'd forget to feel sorry for him again by the end of an hour.


	7. Apples and Swords.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shall I bring the swords? Well. Why not?
> 
> For old time's sakes. 
> 
> (And my daughter's).

Rowland kissed Blair and Alec goodbye, told them that he would be back soon and to behave, only to run into Jess as the door, coming in with a Patti that was already running through the house to find the others. Jess pulled him in for a hug that was more like hugging a grizzly bear (she was stronger than he was) and told him to kick that vampire’s arse and before she moved towards the inside and Rowland stepped outside.

It was moments like this that made Jude certain he had married the greatest, fucking woman in the world. When he had first seen the tweet -- those harried ten characters from his old friend broadcasting a name from his deepest circle of hell -- he knew why the bull charged at the red cape. Hundreds of pleasant images of the man ripped apart, limb from limb, heart from chest, skin from bones, had rip-roared across his mind so fast he knew the only trouble was going to be in choosing just one.  
  
Then he'd smiled. There was another thing that tweet had taught him: Rebecca was right (damn her), when she had told him all those years ago to swallow his vitriol and focusing on living. And he had. It had taken him a year to even casually glance at another girl, and he thought some times -- though not often, as Jude was never one to dwell -- that it was telling even in the simple facts how starkly different his Jess was from Portia. He even thought Kimmie was the only blonde friend he had left, honestly, however shallow a thought that was.  
  
Jess had simply glided into his life (on the arms of another at that point, he liked to remind himself, just to puff himself up with the fact that -- not that she was a trophy or anything, but the better man had won), a storm in her wake. She couldn't be ignored, even in his self-accepted "somber"iety (as Nate had called it). Passion and fire filled her so vibrantly he'd thought a little bit of his old spark couldn't ignore the challenge, and that it couldn't help but rub off on him a little bit. He'd done as Rebecca asked, as Portia would have wanted -- he'd built a life away from it all that did not focus on vengeance, depression or greed. And look how the world rewarded his patience!  
  
It defied even Rebecca's prediction he'd not return to England! "Even Rebecca," was as strong a qualifier as Jude had. He reached for an apple, teeth breaking the red skin and sucking on the juice hard as he sets his phone on the counter and prepares to tell Jess.  
  
Only when he looked up, she was already in front of him, hands on her hips and curt kick-ass-baby words seconds from her lips. The cool shock and fear for Rebecca's sake erased in one look from his wife. He opened his mouth, to tell her he didn't want her to come with him even though he knew perfectly well she could handle herself, that she didn't need his protection and was no damsel in distress. He was going to tell her it wasn't about that, stumble along words like he usually did and pepper them with the to-die-for smirk and wiggling eyebrow his wife had a weakness for (he could tell by the curl in her lips and the back of her hand anytime she pushed at him asking "why do you think that works?"), and he even wasn't above praying she wouldn't insist on coming with.  
  
If it was anyone but Marcus, he'd want her -- no, he'd need her by his side, his partner (and better, as she was fond of pointing out) in (practically) everything. But it was Marcus. Jude had to do this alone, he just...had to. It wasn't a judgment of her, nor was it (solely) fear she would die on him (too)...it was a visceral, scarlet part of his being. Made only more poignant by the fact that he wasn't even entirely sure Marcus knew who he was. For wasn't that the point? Marcus ripped lives apart, families apart, fed on humanity and laughed over their bones and did it all without a care in the world -- not a care to learn his victim's names, or give a damn about those who loved them.  
  
Loathe was not the right word. What word existed for such deep hatred that thinking his name throbbed with Beethoven's fifth, and bass guitar solos replaced his breath? What word could there be for such a monster as he -- he who took the life of an eighteen year old girl for the simple crime of defying his mind-control, after he violated her whilst sinking bone-white teeth into her skin and sucking her dry? He could think of many words for Portia -- sunshine, blonde, braid, innocent, youth, knights, princesses, rags, orchids, sexy, gorgeous, forgiveness, adoration, love -- but he could think of none for the one who took her away.  
  
None was enough.  
  
And by the time he choked down the apple bite, his wife had told him to go, told him to kick arse, threatened him with bodily harm if he didn't return to her -- and done it all with wide, brown eyes that said: I know.  
  
Best, fucking, woman, ever. He'd told her that with a throaty chuckle of relief. Then Jude grabbed her cheeks, kissing her hard, furiously as only they could, with tongue and teeth like she was trying to steal back the apple, and he was trying to leave his imprint in every crevice of pink, wet flesh. Thirty seconds, give or take, to lose himself in this woman who had snatched up the broken pieces of his heart, squeezed them between her fists as if his heart had been made of coal, her hands thousands of years of compression  -- and left him with heart whole, a shining diamond.  
  
He only broke away from her because Patti was holding a sword.  
  
"Sweetie -- "  
  
"I got it for you!" Patti had made perfectly clear presenting it that she wanted one too, and so Jude had been sure to take it, adding in a quick tweet to Rowland "what do you say we bring swords for old time's sakes," and took the hairbrush Jess offered him.

As soon as Pamela gave them the address, he had it enchanted to take them off.

Another tweet from Jude, and then a turn in place had Rowland land outside of Jude’s apartment. His heart was still trying to beat out of his chest at a thousand miles per minute, but he had to push that aside. They knew where Becca was and while they couldn’t apparate there, a portkey would do the trick. He was glad Jude had taken care of it frankly because the last time Rowland had tried to make one, they ended up in Chile and had to explain to the authorities there what they were doing with an unauthorized portkey from another country.

Nearly an hour had passed and Rowland was anxious and angry, but Jude next to him? Jude was absolutely furious. Nevertheless, he was glad to be doing this with him, so Rowland clapped him on the shoulder before holding on to the hairbrush that probably had a variety of uses- as an actual hairbrush, a microphone, a make believe wand, a sword, a hairbrush could be anything especially when you lived in a house with kids. Right now the hairbrush was a portkey and they had actual swords.

When the time finally counted down, he was pulled forward by his navel, spinning round and round until they reached the destination in Scotland. Landing on the ground had jarred his knees, as he had yet to find out exactly how to make a smooth landing, but at least he hadn’t ended up face first in the concrete. They were next to the pub, in the alleyway.

Quietly, they peered around saw them stepping out of the pub and his heart ran cold.

 

+

By the end of her whiskey; the flames it poured down her throat fan anger in her gut she couldn't hide from. Every word was calculated she said in answer to his questions -- to tease, to tantalize, but never to satisfy his thirst for her knowledge -- so much so that she felt oddly for a moment as if she were a Queen and he, her subject, begging for an audience. It was how she sat too. Poised, tall, the way Rowland always teased her she was born to be a Lady and she'd thought...perhaps she was. Though, okay, her smugness (and outright angry profanity) at times was...perhaps less calculated. She never did try to control her emotions, only refrain from letting them rule her: it was one of many antitheses their relationship was born of.

They spent the next hour much like that, trading little quick and snippy comments back and forth, yet she offered no other information about her abilities, how it was that three people had managed to live that long, and surely not how she got her information from him, though he did have her use it again. He spoke of his activities during the years spent away from England, she would tell him whether it was accurate or ‘a bunch of shit’, as she once eloquently spoke it.

They exited the pub, no longer arm in arm though the fact that if she made a move to turn on the spot to disapparate he could very easily just reach out and grab hold of her and be sent traveling alongside her, hung on the air and so she didn’t make a move to leave just yet, for he had expressed that he would leave her first and Marcus tended to be a man of his word.

He turned on her again when they were well outside, catching her gaze again and then breathing out, out of habit more than necessity, leaving an icy trail where his breath travels.

As he turns to her, the small town road that had appeared so deserted to her, she found herself stiffen for two, distinct reasons: Rebecca knew she wasn't alone after all (she didn't need to see her husband after all this time to know he was there); and because Marcus was so damn close once more, his breath striking her lips. Her hand curls into a fist, fingers grappling and scraping her own palm, but she doesn't blink.

“Time travel that far back isn’t possible.”

Took him long enough, is what she thinks (honestly, had he never seen Back to the Future?) but what she says as her lips curl up is entirely different.

"Backwards, forwards...you're not even forming the question properly, let alone phrasing it so. The amount you don't understand, after nearly three hundred years on this Earth -- frankly shocks me." She looks away for an instant to sigh and see if she could see where Rowland was, and her lips flick up as she realizes: yes.

Just that, _It Isn't Possible,_ Marcus asked without a question mark. Just that simple statement, so he could analyze her breathing, her heartbeat, her facial expression and any other movement to see if she agreed or disagreed.

Her self-aggrandizing attitude, one that usually was his forte, was only too amusing to watch. She stood as every bit the proper woman she had deceived him to be a century ago, giving him scraps of information she knew he could do little with yet he accepted them anyways. He was a far more patient man now, and vanity and pride, while still a part of his personality, were not as present as they once were. That was his advantage here, that she still believed him to be the same vampire and monster she had met before, and expected him to act the same way. Well, now he was a lot more subtle. So he allowed her to remain on her high horse, thinking herself the better, the more intelligent, the dominant on in the conversation when in fact, he had her matched step for step. The more surprising part of it was that it was matched, not surpassed.

He was interrupted by something colliding with his head.

Louder now, "But perhaps that's why. Three hundred years in a line, two hundred and twenty-five of it convincing yourself the past would never matter, that it was "behind" you, it's no wonder you're so fooled. You did so to yourself. As you've done everything."

Well, perhaps not everything: Jude had just struck him with an apple core.


	8. Door Number Four, Please.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Must we be murderers, coward, or corpse?

Marcus Ellwood. A man he hadn’t seen in... _God, is it 14 years?_ , is still just as Rowland remembers him, only no longer dressed in the attire of the pureblood court. He wears jeans, a sweater, a coat, a scarf, like any other normal man might. He did not have a single finger laid on his wife but he stepped too close, spoke too quietly and too intensely for Rowland’s liking and with a growl he stepped out of the alley, Jude in tow, and watched Jude put all the strength he had behind a throw and grins in satisfaction as it made contact.

“Back away from my wife, Marcus.”

He had his wand out, pointed at the vampire and his gaze flicked to Rebecca, feeling like he could finally breathe a little easier upon seeing her there, alive, even if she wasn’t yet safe, none of them were.

“Why didn’t you stay in the hell where you came from?”

Hearing her husband's fervor made her smile honestly for the first time in an hour-- not smirk, not small and sad, but a smile. Wide and bright with love shining in her blue eyes as she lays eyes on him, relieved for the simple fact that she had even one more second of being able to see him. They were always that way-- thankful for every miraculous, mundane moment; the reminders to buy orange juice and the sighs of wondering when  in-laws were leaving -precisely-, though that shouldn't be taken to mean of course that he didn't love her parents, just--(she always kissed him at that point, on the cheek, the nose, ear-tips...). And equally for the first time in an hour, she felt settle so deeply in her heart: fear.  
  
When solo, Marcus could only hurt her physically. That wasn't to say she didn't know how much pain he could inflict that way -- she'd caught glimpses when his fangs sank in her neck, when she saw the final moments of Amber's life -- nor that she wasn't wary of pain. Only that she knew there was nothing he could do to hurt her deeper, worse, burn himself back into her soul as he had all those years ago. She exhales. Quick and sudden. Her eyes dart back to Marcus' cold ones. Now, he could. If he were inclined, he could force the answers out of her just by seizing Rowland's neck -- and she knew from the briefest look to Jude, it wasn't her husband's life she'd soon be bargaining for.  
  
"I'm all right." She says, to both, her heart skipping a beat and clenches her back teeth down, adding in a snap without blinking or breaking Marcus' gaze.

"Physically."

These were the thoughts on his mind when he first laid eyes on Ellwood once more: his wife and daughter, how lucky he was to have them, to have love again, something this monster had tried so damn hard to make sure he'd never have -- and never even bothered to learn his name. To be so insignificant to the bastard, to be so small in the eyes of this lordly monster -- well, it seemed the only thing to do first was meet his expectations.

So Jude aimed the apple core at his head, wand in his other hand, and watched it collide with a satisfied smirk.

Marcus turned his head when something collided with it. A brief look to the ground revealed it to be an apple core, and when he raised his gaze again, and heard Rowland’s voice, he grinned. Now, it was a party. Like in America, where people had these class reunions after high school, ten years later, twenty years later, except theirs was not a matter of decades but of centuries.

Thank the Lord, Rebecca knew instinctively that Rowland would have ensured their children were safe and she doesn't have to ask. Blair would just walk right up to Marcus, she knew, their daughter would be just so excited to see their old tales coming to life again. And Alec would step in front of her, ever the protective elder, just as brave and strong as Rowland. It wasn't only his ears that Alec got from his father.  
  
Still hissing, she continues calling to them, in a manner flippant, "Marcus just saw someone he didn't expect walking down the street and hasn't learned in two centuries kidnapping is impolite."

Jude hears Becca as he hears Rowland, but it was only the thought of his wife and daughter that kept him from casting instantly, kept him from doing anything but open his mouth again -- because he'd lost Portia. He'd lost it once. There was no goddamn way he was letting Jess and Patti lose him.  
  
"Ah, only a bit impolite though, really-- sometimes it's the only way you can really get some privacy."  
  
Jude smirks. His words echo Rebecca without blinking, eyes narrow on Ellwood and breath hot.

Two wands were pointed at the vampire, and only nostalgia grew for him. The last time he had a wand pointed at him like that had been a hundred years ago, and that was because a man had challenged him to a duel because he thought Marcus had defiled his betrothed. It wasn’t totally incorrect the assumption either.

“Rowland, you’ve grown a little more backbone since the last time we saw each other,” Marcus remarked cheerily without faltering. Now it was a little more difficult to keep his attention on Rebecca. Though admittedly the threats were minor, they were threats after all and required some of his attention. They seemed a little less willing to fire off upon hearing Rebecca speak up again. At least, Rowland was; he couldn’t say the same about Jude, a man he hadn’t actually met until right now.

He didn’t correct Rebecca’s description of kidnapping even though he wanted to state it was quite simply an invitation or rather more of coercion than anything else.

“And you haven’t changed a bit,” he replied bitterly, a tone that was almost biting. He couldn’t be entirely biting because his attention was on Rebecca, his wife, the love of his life, standing as tall as she could muster in her Lady pose: shoulders back, chin raised, with the air of someone who believed herself above all of this. Rowland knew better, even with that attitude towards Marcus, it took Rebecca much effort to think herself above anyone. Even Marcus, after everything Rebecca had told him she had uncovered about the vampire.

Rowland was rooting for her thinking herself infinitely better than that vile creature that had done so much wrong: he had filled Claudia’s mind with words for revenge while she was at her lowest, only to test out an experiment for his amusement, he had killed a handful of Damocles’ knights, had facilitated the death of Merwyn, had imperiused Anthony and Oliver to betray Damocles and kill their loved ones, and he had tried to kill Rebecca. He was evil personified and Rowland couldn’t help but to wonder what his friend Damocles would do.

(Probably something stupid and yet equally heroic.)

"Just a little kidnapping", yeah, it was an understatement as ever, and Rebecca knows she was the one who insisted they leave London, but she doesn't care. She wants Marcus' eyes to stay on her, wants him to remain enthralled. It was the only thing that had saved her life then and now. Under her breath in a whisper only meant for Marcus' ears now, she adds bare, stark, raw snap all in one heated breath.

"One finger on them and I swear -- to you, because I know that means more than swearing to God-- not only will I fucking rip you apart, but I won't start with physically, and you know, I can." Her brows snap together, "And will you never know how either."

“Don’t say that, Rebecca, you make me want to provoke you,” he replied instead, smirking and then turned again as Rowland and Jude moved to start circling him. How adorable.

"You've never had any control over what I say before," she counters instantly through gritted teeth and with an arched eyebrow, "what makes you think you'll start now?"   
  
That, was less calculated to say, but she hated Rowland's name being on his lips, wanted to shove it right down his throat until he swallowed on his own tongue for daring to. It was an insult, the command: the simple "don't say that," like he had any fucking right to demand anything at all of her; in fact, wasn't she the only one he hadn't successfully controlled? Well, her and... ~~ _Portia._~~

(No, don't go there.)

Now, however, Rowland didn’t know which one to be more worried about at that moment: Rebecca or Jude. Rebecca knew how to handle Marcus, probably the only one who knew how really, as she had done it before and come out successful just like Rowland knew she would but there was no telling what Jude would do especially after Marcus said her name. Rowland closed his eyes only briefly before he stepped closer to Rebecca. She had said that she was okay, physically, but it wasn’t the physically he was worried about. His wife was strong, the strongest woman he knew. There was not one obstacle she hadn’t struck down from her path, not one monster she hadn’t faced head on and defeated and that included Marcus Ellwood.

Yet Rowland wouldn’t breathe properly until Rebecca was in his arms again, so he kept taking steps towards her, meeting her eyes with his, feeling the desperation hanging between the two of them, to reunite again because together they were stronger and unstoppable.

“I thought I told you to step away from her,” he repeated with teeth clenched.

“She’s at perfect liberty to leave,” Marcus replied after taking a hand out of his pocket and gesturing away from him,

“Always was."

Jude's eyes were narrowing, and so Rebecca interject's quickly, abrupt -- with a laugh. "Oh was I always? Again, I must have misunderstood--" But she cuts herself off.   
  
Her gaze leaps back to Rowland and Jude as she thinks: no, that would not be smart. Causality with him throwing her back against an alley was bravery (and foolish, but it was something he did and she couldn't help but mimic--to mock or make use of, she decidedly didn't want to know). Doing so now when her husband and old friend were there already furious would only make one of them heroic in her name, and she wouldn't dare.

That Rowland didn’t understand. Marcus didn’t speak it in the threatening hiss that Rowland remembered him always speaking in. This was an amusement and yet not one borne out of smugness and for a moment he was perplexed endlessly but a second later he decided, he didn’t care and continued his steps towards Rebecca, raising the hand that hovered over the sword to reach out for her, as if his fingers could part the space between them themselves.

"You mean to say you came all this way just for a little catching-up chat? How have you been -- haven't seen you since...let's see, oh when was it...ah, right, when you set a dragon on an innocent town, stabbed a woman to let her bleed to death in the snow -- gracious, has it really been a century?! How time flies."    
  
Gesturing with the wand and taking hesitant, circular steps away from Rowland's side (because attacking from back-and-front felt like a safer tactic when the man could travel leagues faster than he could say fuck you); Jude's words and tone are all light. If it wasn't for his eyes, wide with a manic glint in them, he genuinely might have been talking about the weather.  
  
"Wonderful then, let's catch up." his wand raises as his other wraps around the sword hilt on his hip, "I'll start, I'm Jude. Do you remember me?"  
  
“I was having difficulty,” Marcus admitted, putting his hands in the pockets of his coat before turning to Jude singularly. “Rather, I was wondering what offense I had caused you specifically but you’ve just turned on the lightbulb.”

“Portia, wasn’t it?” he tilted his head even as he saw from the corner of his eyes Rowland step closer to his wife. Her heart leaping in her chest as she hears the name, she takes a tiny side step towards Rowland, unclenching her fist and straining her fingers towards her husband even as she darts a wary glance between all three of them. 

Jude doesn't see Rebecca's expression - he wouldn't let himself see it, because he refused to think on what she had told him. To her credit, she doesn't say anything, even as he lifts the wand higher, casting a simple ward against disapparition in the vicinity and thinks it was lucky there were so many trees. No shortage of stakes around.  
  
It was infuriating, the casual way he said Portia's name, the dismissive attitude -- and he knew, he knew he shouldn't let that affect him, that all Marcus was trying to do was provoke him, when he had a wife and daughter to think about -- but would they be safe regardless, so long as this monster walked the Earth? Someone had to stop him. Jude's eyes flash.  
  
"Well, it was a long time ago," he hisses, stepping forward, "but I must admit, I didn't think you ever forgot anyone who beat you."

“Yes, it’s coming back to me.” Only now did Marcus seem to realize, though he wasn’t for he had noticed the moment they were in his line of sight, that he carried a sword.

“Bit old fashioned of you two,” he gestured to the swords.

_Speaking of provoking_ , she thinks bitter and chilled, but at least Rowland was beside her now; even if she hated that Marcus had still not moved. Turned, yes, with too much grace for the icy corpse he was -- but not moved away from her, and so by extension, he now could grab Rowland too.   
  
She breathes out in a hiss as Marcus gestured at the swords (though really, she wasn't sure why they had them - on the other hand, being fairly handy with one herself from half a decade's training with Jude, she was grateful another weapon could be in her reach); her words are cut over by Jude.  
  
"Ah, well." Taut, white-knuckled fingers grasp around the blade's hilt as if he had started a careless gesture he couldn't keep so mundane. "What can I say? My wife fancied me with it," Jude's hand lays on his heart, "and I'm ever at her command. _You_ ," and his voice, his face, his hand all instantly turn hard as if he was cutting with scissors through the air, "wouldn't understand."

“No I wouldn’t,” Marcus spoke as he analyzed the man with so much hatred for him in his heart. That was the thing that all of these three had in common: a hatred for Marcus. Marcus on the other hand, only had a hatred for Rebecca and funnily enough that hatred kept her alive but these other two, what were they to him? Flies. The same way that Portia had been a fly; insects like that are swatted away not actively hunted and killed. So he would just have to swat them away, literally if it came to it. 

Jude stops walking, only because Marcus could close distance between them soon enough, and would, and his shot was better with a little distance between them - the man's physical strength (which was only to have grown) was vastly superior to his.  
  
"She died a hero." Jude's words were as dark as he'd ever spoken, but that had his eyes wide and bright, and so he shrugs a shoulder, a tiny smirk appearing as his hand flicks with his wand, "And now, you'll die, and she'll have done so twice."

Marcus simply smiles.

"Now, don’t make me rethink my choice to leave you all alive.”

Rebecca's hand darted into Rowland's, as she almost couldn't dare look away from Jude's face -- riveted and emotional as he was, panic in her throat and lungs bursting with air. She was grateful that Marcus hadn't attacked yet - and grateful that Jude seemed to have enough sense not to try a full-frontal assault, but then. Provoking him was hardly the better option. And yet a third time, what choice did they have? Her eyes snap back to Marcus as she speaks, trying to stall Jude and save him at once -- however justified he was.

Patience, Marcus had, but time he was running out of on this day.

Maybe his patience had just taken a beating too. Now his head tilted completely towards Jude, who was just so determinedly digging himself into a bigger hole. If he kept making it any bigger, it could serve as his grave. After all, who did he think he was, coming towards him, wand and sword at the ready, with every intent in killing him? He took a step away from the newly reunited Rowland and Rebecca and towards Jude and then another, his expression that of a patient instructor, listening to a student cite the answer to a question he believed to be correct beyond all doubt.  
  
"No." Rebecca's words surprise even her, "No, it's not your choice whether or not we survive. It has never been, Marcus."  
  
She takes a step forward, as if she thinks it'll make Jude step back, or at least make Marcus look around again to her.   
  
"We leave and, what? What then? You show up on our door steps at three in the morning? Chase us around the world? You hoping we'll lead you on a merry hunt through Timbuktu, leave a trail of fear you can smell and follow and alleviate your endless boredom for at least a little while?" Her jaw was shaking, and she shakes her head in a quick jerk.   
  
He wasn't in control because he fucking wasn't, but then, neither was she: none of them were. None of them could be. The truth was even if she took a step back, grabbed Rowland's hand, lifted the ward and ran like hell to grab Jude and force him out of the clearing: Marcus wasn't going to leave them be. What were their options: murderers, prey, or corpses?   
  
Door number four, please.   
  
Her eyes squint in diagonal lines as she keeps her gaze locked on Marcus and she hisses.

"You call that freedom?"

Humans valued free will so ardently, Marcus does have to remember that. They performed so well when they thought they were in control of their lives when in reality, they weren’t. He looked over his shoulder, just a glance as he surveys her. He knew she just meant to distract him from responding to the man's threats. He could play along...for now, he thinks, then clicked his tongue in a tut and feigned being insulted.

“Is that how little you think of me- wait,” he interrupted Rowland when he saw the man begin to open his mouth to interject, “worse, right? That’s all very well but I have other things to bide my time with, I’ve no need to play hide and seek with you people. Keep your freedom.”

Rebecca loved her husband. She loved him with all her heart, her soul, her being and she thought in many ways with some part of the world that didn't even belong to her-- some consciousness that had forced time to cooperate to let them beat the odds and stay together. So when he took a step forward and seized her hand again, she couldn't help but squeeze it back, despite her shiver and wish at that moment that she might have been able to slip Marcus poison in that bar, or find a counter-curse to counteract the potion that let him walk in the sun (it was still bright outside, after all), or --   
  
"You bastard--"


	9. A Lesson on Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You taught me how to kill you a long time before today.
> 
> If you think that's intimidating, stare into my eyes one more time, and see the truth, the underlying truth. 
> 
> You've made me a bigger monster. 
> 
> (Thanks for that.)

  
"Jude-," she hisses as the man stood taller and flicked his wand up, clearly about to cast anyway and nearly shook with relief that her saying his name seemed to be enough to stall him. Momentarily, at least, and she was certain: it had more to do with the idle comment about his wife, their families, that stalled Jude's furious, shaking hand. He was glaring at Marcus, his jawline tight and without flinching, however menacing the dark approach.

Marcus’ smirk widened as Jude’s temper got the best of him, his arm higher, with every intent in casting the spell. Marcus enjoyed getting under the man’s skin so easily, for a tick of a woman who had left no impression upon the world and had vanished as quickly as she came into it. The moment the spell would have left the wand, it would have been a step towards the right to avoid it and then a few more hurried movements to get behind him, wrap an arm around his neck and begin choking him for fun. Or maybe fun wasn’t the correct word anymore, or the correct reason. He would do it because he had to remind them, because apparently they needed reminding, that they had every reason to fear him.

Rowland had never done anything quite so horrible so as to elicit that facial expression out of his wife. He wasn’t nearly that stupid, nor did he have that death wish but Marcus, he must be both stupid and suicidal to not cower in front of his wife with the tone and demeanor she held in front of them. Rowland was as much proud as he was frightened and that was saying something. Proud of Rebecca for behaving herself as if she had no fear when it must be the opposite—well, he was assuming, because that was what rang true for him. Yet he wasn’t going to let his fear of the vampire stop him, wasn’t that how they all were?

One thing was sure then, the sooner that Marcus stopped addressing his wife directly, the better. He spoke with too much familiarity, and so Rowland didn’t try to even begin to question what had transpired in the past hour otherwise his wand would have a mind on its own and turn on Marcus, firing whatever curse Rowland deemed most appropriate at the moment; Giselle had taught him one that floated the person in mid-air. If Rowland could manage to hit him with that spell, and Jude just run him through the heart-

And in that moment Rowland realized he was planning a murder.

Technical definition aside about how murder was the killing of a human being by another human being that was exactly what it was, and he hadn’t planned a murder since he’d poisoned Claudia. He hated that he was considering it again so quickly, hated what this vampire had done to him and to Rebecca so many years ago. But it wasn’t only themselves that they had to worry about now, it was their children, their friends, and they couldn’t continue living not knowing if Marcus was going to come after them. After all, Rowland Stone was just a Google search away- the bastard could probably find his twitter that way too.

Marcus was left only smirking at the man, his eyes full of the challenge Jude tried to offer before he simply chuckled, shook his head and moved away from Jude, moved away from all of them, taking the steps backwards instead of left or right.

“Keep your wife and your families. Leave now, without doing anything stupid, and you can leave with your heads too.”

“What’s to stop you from coming after us, anyway?” Rowland spoke up again, after having taken steps away from Marcus, his hand grasping Rebecca’s firmly.

“Nothing, I suppose.”

“Then you understand why we can’t let you leave here alive.”

“My, my Rowland,” Marcus laughed once, a sound that sent a cold shiver down Rowland’s spine making the man raise his wand a little higher. “Bold words, I expect them from Jude here,” he gestured to Jude with an open hand and a wide toothy grin, “not from you. Make no mistake gentlemen, Rebecca, you cannot kill me. Maybe if you had a dozen of you, then you could kill me; that’s how I killed my vampire when I was human. Do the smart thing, hmm? Walk away.”

"You expect anything from me?" Jude speaks flatly, half-humming, "Why, I'm flattered. That is a step up, to be sure."   
  
Even still, Jude lowers the ward, because they needed time to plan, they needed another option, and attempting to run him through right now would only leave him void a throat.

Jude's righteous quest was amusing, but Marcus was almost done with the man entirely. Almost.

“You should probably avoid the next step up, though. That’s when I make house calls.”  

House calls, Jude scoffs and for an instant he wants to use the cover of his lowering the ward to cast another spell; if he just hurts the monster long enough to jam a branch in his chest then all would be taken care of. He doesn't only because he knows it was less akin to bravery or justice, more akin to "suicide-murder" pact -- and just glares straight back in Marcus' eyes as he's approached. He won't blink or flinch, just cocks his eyebrow up and responds light as Jude always was,   
  
"All the same to you, I don't take advice from psychopathic, sadistic vampires. Well, anymore. Just as a personal philosophy thing, see."   
  
Each remark was breathy, trying to swallow the raging monster that roared so loudly from his gut to damn propriety or sense and stab the man through with the sword he held.

Rowland squeezed hold of his wife’s hand even tighter, not allowing his eyes to move from Marcus for one second, not even to look at her or Jude because any sudden movement, any hint that he would step up and hurt any of them, Rowland wouldn’t aim to incapacitate, he would aim to kill, and  afterwards worry about what it meant, when they were safe. Rebecca could see something else in his eyes; the wheels turning and she realizes slowly what he was thinking, and could have kissed him. Settling for lifting Rowland's hand to her lips and kissing it hard, she lowers her hand and keeps her words chilled.

"You've never had any need to do anything. At least, that's what you believe. A dozen? It was eleven -- and all right fair enough, that particular number is negligible, dozen if you count yourself and what not -- but you forget I saw how you did it."   
  
She smiles a tiny bit for a moment, lacing her fingers with Rowland's and adding quieter, beneath still narrow eyes,

"You taught me how to kill you a long time before today, Marcus."  
  
Unfortunately, he was absolutely right in that she would need more people with her to do it; as he was absolutely right the smartest thing they could do right now was walk away, uninjured, give themselves time to plan. Jude hadn't lowered his wand, but she could see he understood, a tiny nod at her she hoped Marcus was looking at her for and she rubs her thumb flatly over Rowland's ring, aching to put her own on again.

“If you think reminding me of your knowledge is enough to frighten or intimidate me, Rebecca, stare into my eyes one more time,” he looked at her now, smiling. “And see the truth, the underlying truth. You’ve made me an even bigger monster. So I suppose I should thank you.”

He inclined his head towards her, grinning from ear to ear now at having used the word monster to refer to himself. It had a hint of irony attached, given that he didn’t even mean it bitterly anymore. Of course, he would always hate himself, and she knew it, but it was a rather delicious way to go down. He’d accepted it and didn’t someone once say that it was only by accepting who they were that they could get what they wanted?

Something settles in her heart as Marcus looks back at her with that honest, perverted smile and she thinks -- she didn't even need to look in his eyes to know he spoke the truth. She did though, almost unconsciously her gaze seems traps on his, bare, unrelenting, ice -- and she jerks her head in a nod accepting the fact: she'd hurt him. Of course that would make him crueler. It was the response he had to everything that ever had. It makes her shiver all the same, that their was a certain new subtlety to his villainy. Bastard. Thank God Rowland had her hand, she would have been ... breaking her own wrist at that thought, the image of punching his jaw too fantastic to pass up on if it hadn't meant dropping her husband's hand.

If there was one thing Rowland could give Marcus is that he didn’t flinch with Rebecca’s stare. Rowland thought he would, hell, he wasn’t sure anybody wouldn’t, this was Rebecca after all and when she got that sickly, poisonously, sweet, it was enough to make legions of armies fall at her feet. Lady Rebecca Cowen (Stone) still lived on in the nightmares of men.

  He would tease her about that later.  
  
When she speaks again, it's sweetly, as cold as his own voice was, because she'd found her door number four. It wasn't his death she desired; at least, not by their hands. It was something much more primal than that, something much more visceral: evisceration. There were many other lives they had to save, if half of what he'd told her was true and unfortunately for her -- she always knew when it was.   
  
"I seem to recall you said you'd be the one to walk away from me," She squeezes Rowland's hand tighter again, thumb pausing to massage his pulse, and it occurs to her she hasn't so much as drawn her wand. "Come now, Marcus, if you're such a gentleman now you wouldn't break your word, would you? Do it now."

Rowland would tease his wife about her noble persona later.   Right now, he was too busy trying to keep his jaw clenched and his head held high to mirror his wife’s, to see if any of her strength somehow passed onto him so he could keep it together. Jude's ward was gone. Rebecca was dismissing Marcus.

Marcus spun on his feet to apparate away but pauses first, to look at Rebecca completely now, again pausing as she adds, almost nonchalant.

"And I'd get to Gina quickly if I was you, because she won't be of much use to you soon."

His eyebrows arch, his head tilts, and his mouth opens in genuine amusement, interest -- even a little wonder. How on Earth could she possibly know that much? Marcus hadn’t thought her name once even if he was always at the back of his mind, the meeting that he had do ungraciously post-poned but that he knew he would be forgiven for.

Rebecca didn't blink as he meets her gaze again, a world of promise in his dark eyes even as his mouth opens in wonder. Ah. She'd hit more of a nerve than she intended. Truthfully, she had taken a stab: Gina's name had been the one-worded answer she could find when asking silently why it was he was "late"; Gina could have been a descendant of his son's, another vampire, anything...but she'd thought not. She'd thought if anything was keeping him in London it was business -- and by business, she meant, vengeance of a silent and twisted, fatal kind. Which meant it was more likely that Gina was his latest Claudia.   
  
  “Well to be honest, I’m surprised she’s lasted me this long,” Marcus relents with a brief twitch of his lips before chuckling and then waving at them. “It was fantastic seeing all of you again, Rowland, Jude.”

So, her dismissing though a simple ‘get lost’ would have suited the situation just fine in Rowland’s opinion as well. That wasn’t to say he didn’t approve of her words either, though he really wanted to ask who Gina actually was. Marcus looked back at Becca and Jude thinks with narrow eyes there was something sickeningly thirsting in his gaze as his black eyes trail over his friend.

As Marcus relents to her, dismissing the girl entirely Rebecca realizes her gut really was just too damn good sometimes and her stomach twists, squirming uncomfortably under his honest amusement. Right, so, she had to find this Gina. She'd start where he had been late meeting her, she had a picture mentally and luckily she thought pink hair might be easily traced--

Marcus nods at them before holding Rebecca’s gaze again, steady and quietly.  All other thoughts were held off as he narrows his eyes on hers and her breath cuts out as she realizes he was intentionally telling her something now, promising with his eyes that this -- this, whatever it was, whatever was happening, this between them -- was far from over. On the contrary, it had just begun. Endings where beginnings were, beginnings where endings were -- just another of the series of contradictions and cyclical patterns they lived their lives in. There was wordless certainty in him as there was in her: he was determined -more than that, he was hungry to figure her out, unravel her mystery.  
  
For that instant, his grey eyes on her icy ones in a lingering stare, Rebecca simply couldn't breathe.

It was a look _intimate_ , one promising that he would keep in touch before Marcus winks, and turns on heel.

“I’m going to ki-“, Rowland moved to step forward but it was too late, Marcus had already gone. It was probably for the best, after all, he had been about to do something very, very stupid.

In the same instant Rowland burst half out with a threat Jude mirrors, snapping, "Fucki--"  
  
And the curse only gets more comfortable as he sees the man disapparate -- get away, disappear before his eyes like he'd never been there and Jude spins around lifting the wand and breaking the branch of the nearest tree in anger -- in frustration -- in hurt.

Instead, finally feeling like he could breathe again, he wrapped his arms around Rebecca entirely, holding her to him and rubbing her arms and her back and squeezing her.  

“God, I was so worried, everyone’s in an uproar,” he pulled back barely to cup her cheeks, brush away her hair and rub the line of her jaw with his thumbs, sighing, just relieved to have her in his arms, in his hands again. The fear that had been running through him from the very moment he saw the screen of his mobile light up with the tweet notification was only slowly ebbing away the more he held her close.

Rebecca hardly hears the tree; the moment Marcus was gone it was like breath pops back into her lungs, an explosion of air she hadn't realized he'd stolen and she half falls into Rowland's arms, desperate and relieved to be gathered up in his warmth.   
  
"I'm fine," she speaks softly, admitting quieter for his ears only, "Well, I will be. I...am so glad you're here."

The embrace was tight, his hands soothing her forehead, her cheeks, her hair, like he couldn't touch enough of her and believe she was really all right. Rebecca says nothing for a few moments, letting him just rub life and breath into her shivering, chilled body and then meets his lips abruptly -- hard.   
  
The world disappears.  
  
Another thought makes her pull back: Gina wasn't the only one.   
  
"Wait," her wide eyes snapped back open, feeling better now, feeling more like herself even as she has a renewed sense of terror. Twisting her hands around Rowland's wrists and gathering his arms together to her throat, she squeezes and holds his gaze as intently as ever, saying quietly, "Wait, we need to go back to the pub -- come with me."   
  
There's another distinct sound of a sword slicing a low hanging branch off.   
  
She calls, "Both of you."   
  
Then she tugs Rowland's wrists, unable to let him go and praying that Jude would follow or at least return to Jess, but not knowing what she could do for him -- not now she felt she'd partially robbed his vengeance, convinced him as Marcus was convincing him, been on his side and--the thought blazes red in her scorched throat. No, she thinks bitterly, no she'd been trying (and succeeded, as she did before, as Rowland had, as she would again) just to save those she loved from this monster. It was different.  
  
Within a few hurried minutes they reach the pub again, the Ship on the Edge of the Shore (she hadn't seen the name before) and now she thinks it was no surprise at all that Marcus had chosen this place. All she does is stumble back inside with Rowland, searching out the waitress that had served them and finding another twenty-pound note in her jacket's pocket.   
  
The girl's eyes -- lord, was she 18? Maybe 19 -- went wide seeing her again and she opened her mouth to say something to her - but Rebecca cuts her off, thinking whatever smart or snippy remark about more alcohol the girl had she didn't want to hear. Freeing one hand from Rowland's, she slaps the pound note down in one of her hands and tangles it, their fingers and the girls awkwardly sticking-out pen between her fingers.   
  
"Don't ask why. Just, do not, under any circumstances, let the man I was with before take you anywhere alone. In fact if you can put his picture up on the wall with a nice "do not serve" sign, that would work too, but in the interest of not getting you fired for suggesting it just -- please."   
  
She squeezes her hand, knowing she was frightening her and was...well, glad she was, that was the point. Marcus was dangerous. Understanding him only made that more obvious, didn't they see?  
  
"Please, do not let him coax you out of here -- I don't care what he says, what promises he makes or what he offers, just take it." She nods at the note again, squeezing and releasing her hand. Twenty pounds...God, that was a lot more money to her than it was to him, she knew Rowland had to be surprised by the tip size and didn't blame him -- but if it saved the girl's life? Worth every pence.  
  
"Okay..." The girl shrugs, nonchalant as she sticks the pen back behind her ear and smiles encouragingly at her, asking, "Old boyfriend?"  
  
Rebecca tenses, her teeth gritting together and she shakes her head abruptly. Was that really how they'd looked? Disgusting. Granted, he'd said how intimate he was probably when this girl could hear it, and she had responded "physically"...  
  
"No...he dated my friend."   
  
That was one way to put it.   
  
"I really doubt he'll come back, but, he seemed to like you so--I thought I'd warn you."  
  
The girl smiles sympathetically though, pocketing the note and Rebecca smiles more earnestly, relaxing.   
  
"What's your name? So if he does come by I can tell him why he's not allowed -- remind him why he should have respected your friend, you know."   
  
Rebecca knew that would only irritate him, but...she kind of couldn't help but like the idea of letting him know it was her interfering with his plans. She smirks, squeezing Rowland's hand once more and casting her eyes over her shoulder to her husband and says,   
  
"Tell him Portia said he's not allowed." 

 


	10. (Interlude)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (adapted quotes).

“It is just as you say. But we won’t talk of it. Of all ghosts the ghosts of our old loves are the worst.” 

**C O N A N . D O Y L E**   


In 1793 he bedded a countess, and she smelled like roses and she cried when he tried to leave, and clung to him, and he reached his hand out to stroke her soft petal skin and with a flick of his wrist he left her broken-doll body behind on the sheets.  
  
Her broken-doll body started a war between the count and a small neighboring piece of land, the proprietor of which was believed to be at fault, and not once did he even have to look deep into the eyes of these stupid humans and set his will upon them.  
  
They do all the tearing themselves, you see, with hardly a nudge.   
  
They march screaming out to battle so easily.  
  
You think him a monster?   
  
The count whose wife he murdered raped the children of this neighbor and paraded their heads on stakes before their father, whose screams still stretch themselves across the centuries to still his hand where it glides across his sketchpad.   
  
In the end he ate them both.   
  
He watches the sky through the window. It is bruised by midnight and then touched with the fat red paintbrush of dawn, and she does not come.   
  
He is  _not waiting_.

+.

Her words were pleas for release. His arms found her and pulled her to him. She only wanted to escape him but he would not grant it. They were in this together, until the very end.

"Quiet now, sweetheart," he whispered he cooing at her and shushing her gently.

She continued her hysterics. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks descending down upon him like warm summer rain. Eventually he felt her go limp but she continued to cry. His arms moved to cradle her and then place her head gently upon his lap. With one hand he ran his fingers over her hair. The other hand was entwined carefully with her left hand pressing the lapis lazuli down into the thin skin of her left index finger. They would wait in the sun until her tears stopped and her flesh healed. Then they would wait for tomorrow and do it all over again.

"I'm broken," she pleads softly into the warm spring air.

"No, darling, not yet," he replies assuring her as the tips of his fingers brushed a few strands of bright yellow hair dampened by tears.

He could make wine from those tears.

His statement left a stale promise in the air. She _would_  break him, sooner or later. It would be her most terrible victory to date. And it would kill her. And him as well but he would see the game out till its end. He didn't start this. She had forced his hand with her penchant for betrayal. He was supposed to have had all of her but she had shared her self with others. No, he did not start this but he would end it and he  _would_  win. Marcus always won even when he wished he wouldn't.

"Is this my punishment? To be broken over and over again?"

They were not in Hell. Hell would have been too kind. It would have been death.

"Yes, and mine as well."

And for him to break and her to break him, two penitent souls in their own little corner of purgatory.

+.

Rebuffed by Death, Love, aided by her twin brother Jealousy, made Death fall in love with a mortal man. But she first took the young man’s heart from him, put it inside a jar and locking it away. At first, Death pursued the man across the earth, unaware that he could never love her in return. But when she learnt that the young man had no heart — although, some say he heard that the man had given his heart to Love already — she made the man immortal, so that she would never enter Death’s realm.

Because of this, Death does not care if he separates lovers.

[irish myth;  
tali as death, marcus as the heartless man.]  


+.

Although she has never met the heartless man, Winter still thinks she would know him if he stood in front of her. Over the years they have known each other, Death has told her little things about the heartless man. About the cut of his jaw and the colour of his hair. The freckles across his nose and his blue eyes. And his hands.

Only Death and the heartless man have hands colder than Winter.

[irish myth;  
rebecca as winter, marcus as the heartless man, tali as death.]  


She meets the heartless man at the corpse of a deer, frost clinging to its eyelashes and its tongue hanging from its mouth. When Winter meets the man, Autumn is nothing more than a red haired forest sprite, not yet his own season. And it has been over one thousand year since Love took the Heartless Man’s true love from him. He says the deer is hers, not his, for it was her cold hands that took it from the Earth and not his. 

It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[irish myth;  
marcus as the heartless man, rebecca as winter, rowland as autumn.]

+.  


“For a man who claims not to care about true love, after centuries Death still loves the heartless man. It’s beautifully ironic, isn’t it?”

“You should _really_ look up the definition of ‘irony’ sometime.”   


+.

“Would a little gratitude really sting so much?” he snaps.   
  
“If it’s for you, then yes.” She turns away, and what an  _idiot_ he is, for wanting this girl with her snarled curls and her dripping makeup; how many times will he play the fool; how long does she expect him to go on not killing her, letting her tug his strings, rebuff _him_ —  
  
He stands.  
  
He towers over her.   
  
And this tiny slip of a girl, barely a woman, flicks her eyes of ice up to meet his and lifts her eyebrows and this is his dismissal, and he had an English queen, a Russian princess, and they dipped their knees and bent their necks to him and how their pretty little heads would have  _rolled_ , if they hadn’t-   
  
“ _Marcus,_ ” she hisses.   
  
“ _Fine_ ,” he snarls. “I’ll be seeing you, love.”   



	11. Noblecide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm curious, how come you don't think I'm him?
> 
> Mum always said Marcus was smart.

Blair had been so excited last year when she realized she was going to be going to school  _with_ Alec for a few years, until he went to secondary. And really, she loved that he kept checking on her (he even wasn't saying anything about her hugging him for once!) but still. When the bell rang to call in the fifth years she was happy, because he was hovering like a guard dog. All Blair wanted to do was build a snowman. Lips screwed up as she wiggles her toes in the snow boots fur, she startles - and then smiles.   
  
There was a box of ice cream bars in front of her face.

"Hi Blair. I'm Marcus, we talked on the phone?"

With a visitor's badge pinned to his jacket, Marcus walked through the primary's school halls. A simple confundus to the school's secretary and a few wide smiles and compliments was enough to convince her that he was Blair's uncle. Though she did have the good sense of telling him that he couldn't sign her out without the parents' written consent, even though faking that letter would have been too easy, he simply said he was here to bring her lunch.   
  
That wasn't entirely a lie. Heading over to the school yard, a quick survey of the premises let him find the small girl who seemed more hair than body. He walked over, taking a seat on top of the table where she was tying her snow boots and then held out the box of ice cream bars to her with a smile.

Forgetting the snow, boots, cold (but not her snowman), she looks up curiously. Her bright, blue eyes widen.

"You remembered!"  
  
Blair snatches the box, hugs it close to her chest, and then lowers her boot back to the ground and backs up a step, back straightening and eyes narrowing.

"Thank you. You can leave now."  
  
Marcus chuckled, putting the hand back in his pockets, figuring ah well she must have gotten the story then.

"I didn't come here just to pay you back, Blair. I was hoping we could talk."  
  
"Talk?" Her little eyes narrow as she tilts her head. Voice hesitant, she says, "If you're really Marcus, you don't usually want to talk, you want to threaten."

He smiled, thinking she was quite the astute child but at this very moment, quite wrong.

"Your parents knew me a long time ago, Blair. I'm not the same person I was." So he nods, "Talk, that's all I want to do. If you don't, that's fine, I'll leave."  
  
It was a long time ago, that was true, but. Blair inhales, exhales quickly.

"Dad would say Satan came disguised as an angel of light first." Still, she hesitates, because if all he wanted to do was talk and -- she was safe at school, really, then well she did have a few questions for him. Okay. Few dozen.

He smiles, quite liking that saying. And really, bless Rowland for still believing in God after all these years even if it was ironic of him to say.

"...are you really Marcus? Because I don't see how. Mum and Dad and Uncle Damocles and -- they kicked you out of England when Claudia and the dragon died."

"That's the gist of it, yeah. I'm back, but I had no idea that your parents were still alive."  
  
"Of course they're still alive." Her eyes went round as Galleons and her mouth forms and oh. "Why wouldn't they be?" Now her bottom lip quivers.

"Because it's been nearly 150 years. I'm still here because I'm a vampire, I'm technically dead, but they aren't. It's quite the coincidence..." he tilts his head, honestly curious, "how come you don't think I'm him?"

"It's not a coincidence," a bit happier, for Alec taught her the difference, "if they never left. It's just you not getting you weren't ever supposed to come back. And that's why I don't know if I believe you're him because Mum always said Marcus was smart."   
  
He leans his head on his hand, resting his elbow on his knee as he listened to her logic, which for an eight year old, was completely sound. "A compliment from your mother, that's something."

Yes, the moment Rebecca offered him a compliment was the moment he grew wings and ascended into heaven.

"I don't really like following the rules, but don't worry, I won't stay in England for too long."  
  
Hmph. Biting her lip and toying with the packaging around the ice cream bars, she nods slowly thinking, who'd say they were dead if they weren't? And who'd know all that about her parents pasts? Brisk, "Well, dumb villains are boring. I'm eight and I've read all of Pippi Longstocking now, I gave up on bad guys that I could beat." Her brows furrow as she smiles. "I don't really like the rules either. But I think there's a difference between rule breaking and eating people."  
  
"On that, we agree." 'Dumb villains' as the girl so eloquently put, ended up just being bait for others higher up on the food chain. "I have to survive, Blair. It's not my fault I was turned into what I am. And I don't really eat people, you're thinking of werewolves, the ones that don't just hide when the full moon comes." He smile flickers into a brief smirk with his knowledge, "Ghastly creatures, but I'll give them something, at least they're still alive."  
  
She wiggles her nose, thinking about that and then shrugging a shoulder.

"Supposing that's true, it's still your fault you hurt people. And werewolves don't have a choice either, it was sad what happened to Claudia's brother, but you were the one who made her so mean after."

Though she thought if Alec were hurt she could see why she'd want to hurt the one who did it. She decides not to say this. She didn't want Marcus to make her mean too.

"That's not a nice smile," she says warily, her breath curling in the chilly air in a way that usually made her want to blow really hard and make smoke figures. "Why do you want to talk to me?"  
  
"Oh completely, I know what I'm doing." he nods and then tilts his head because really, he didn't know how to very objective about werewolves when the animosity was heavily ingrained; pheromones reacted against each other, sight and smell combined to a point where it made almost unbearable to be in the other's presence. "Ultimately, it was Claudia's choice too."   
  
But now the girl seemed to run out of questions and was noticing that he hadn't posed any himself, not revealed why he was here, so she decided to bring it up herself. "Quite simply, I am fascinated by your mother's ability. I was curious to see if you yourself possessed them, if it's a genetic trait or a learned practice. Has Rebecca spoken to you about it?"  
  
"Hm." Proud of hurting people, idle about it, taking pleasure in his intelligence? Blair lowered a hand off the ice-cream box to her hip.

"Well, now I believe you're him." Her words were sharp. Though she didn't really know how to feel about it because, she was kind of excited too. The chance to be part of her parents fairytale! But Marcus was the bad guy. So she shouldn't tell him anything. Would he hurt her if she didn't? Could he? There were teachers around..and Ms. Bengt had put Tom in a time-out for pulling her braid, so.  
  
"It's not just Mum," She says instead, proud herself. "Dad's impossible too. They both are. And so am I, and so is Alec. Uncle Brandin says we're the children of time or time-children or something like that, I don't recall exactly because he was saying something scientific - Alec would know - and it was confusing me so I just came up with our superhero names." 

"Children of time, fascinating." And familiar sounding. Yet Marcus had read hundreds of thousands of scholarly articles, papers, theories and classified reports; sorting through his knowledge would be difficult. He had thought to make the search a little easier but it seemed Blair wouldn't make it like that for him.

"Yes." Her smile perked up a little, honest. She liked being called fascinating. It was better than squirt; she'd have hit him if he tried to call her that. Well, maybe not hit him, because hitting people was mean too, but still -- only Alec could call her squirt.

She nods, and nods, feeling better to talk. "It's not just time though. Dad can't lie, and Mum you can't lie to. Ever, but sometimes she lets us get away with things anyways because she loves us and cause Alec is so inventive. But you, she won't."   
  
Her chin juts out. Blair was certain. "No matter how clever an excuse you give her either."

Ah, another member added to his hate club. He chuckled and then picked up his head again, sitting straight and putting his hand in his jacket pocket again.

"I can tell when you're lying too." He taps his ears and offers a smile. "But that's because I have superhuman hearing, how can your mum tell?"

Blinking as his smile seems nicer now, she looks at his ear. Her heart rate quickens; he could tell if she lied? Prat. How was she supposed to fool him now?

"How can you hear a lie?" She asks, hoping she could find a way to lie still -- she could apologize to Dad for it later.

His lips twitch before he shakes his head and then states simply, "Your heart rate picks up and only the most experienced of liars can control their heart rate that well- it works the same way a lie detector does- picking up little subtle nuances."

"Mum just knows. She knows lots of things. So does Dad -- they like to learn...though he takes Alec's school books sometimes. And some day, I'll know it all too. Mum doesn't need to read it to know, but she still says she likes too, because she says history is never written down the way it happened."   
  
And then Blair giggles, remembering, "She was really furious when she read how women got the right to vote in the twenties, she yelled for like a whole hour, pointing at the book Dad was reading and making cookies so she could sit Alec and I down to tell us what really happened. She called James Lowther a really nasty word."

She ventures with a flick to her lips, thinking she'd like the chance to get to actually use them for something important: because he could curse them later in his lair, and the camera would pan all the way back until it seemed like you could hear him from space.

"Do you want our superhero names too?"   
  
He grins and then nods, shrugging, "Yeah, why not? Then if you want, you can give me a super villain name. Marcus is a bit too plain."

What she said next though, the variety of things she said, didn't make much sense. Some drabble about her father liking to read and it made sense, if they had actually time traveled successfully but no hints about Rebecca, just that she seemed to know, but was always willing to learn more. And apparently knew the real way women got the vote in the twenties, he grinned again.  
  
"Okay." She smiles, more at ease that he had offered that too, because adults didn't tend to _listen_ very well, and she kind of agreed. "Mum's was Duchess Divineria because two D's could make for a cool logo and anyway she was noble. Alec was Aeon Giant, because he's really tall. Dad was Honor Tempus, and I was Lady Shimmer. Because I should have Mum's title too, and plus I got to color our logos in with glitter."  
  
Now she narrows her eyes - but not mean, just critical, screwing up as she looked at him and thought. And thought. And thought. Then she nods, decided.

"I like just Noblecide for a villain name. Cause you were a Lord, and cause of 'homicide.' And also 'suicide', it kind of sounds both deadly and ... well." Her voice softens, and her eyes hold his, flicking back up. "Sad too."

His smile grew and grew until he laughed, genuinely and pleasantly amused.

"Those are quite creative. Do you mind if I address you as Lady Shimmer from now on?" This girl had quite the imagination, very inventive, very creative, that was good.

"I'd love it, actually." Brightening at the thought, Blair looks down at herself quickly, and then wrinkles up her lips. "Though I need to put something shimmery on. My dance costumes might work..."

"Noblecide...it works for both doesn't it?"   
  
He had killed Lords and but he was also a Lord who had killed, and in some extent, he had killed himself too. Intuitive.

"Well, she is quite...formidable. You remind me of her you know, you're a good kid." He stands now, smiling still. "I've enjoyed our conversation, Blair. Anything else you wish to ask before I depart?"

She waits a minute as he seems to think everything over -- and then stands too. This, along with the reminder that apparently she was like her mother (which makes her happy, and beam), makes her arms return to her hips and she says sharper again.

"Yes. Yes, I do. You got multiple questions, do I only get one? Because I can't choose between asking why you hurt my Mum, why you killed Portia, if you're really sorry at all and -- and," her voice softens with sudden breathlessness as she realizes no, the question she really wanted to ask was, "...do you want to take Mum away from us?"

She goes still thinking about it and then -- has it thrown from her mind as he chose to answer them all.

"I'll answer them all: I hurt your mother because she hurt me. I killed Portia because she humiliated me. What I do regret is ever going to that court in the first place. But no, Blair."  
  
Marcus breathed out silently, shaking his head. "I'm not going to take your mother away from you." He could have done that already, but that wasn't a logic that seemed to work with these people so he didn't say it out loud. "She'll still be here to pick you up today and every day." And his words were entirely truthful, at least, they were at that very moment.  
  
Suddenly shivering, as if she remembers abruptly that it was nearly freezing outside even though she'd never gone anywhere, she lifts her hand to drag her zipper up even though it was already all the way. Quiet, she nods. She wanted to ask other things, but if that was all he regretted...Blair had cried when Portia died in the story...just as she knew Uncle Jude had and if...if it was really that easy to kill than even Lady Shimmer (and she was without her shimmer at the moment!) needed her Duchess sometimes to protect her, right?   
  
So she says nothing at first, lets a low breath of relief fill the air at the last words. If he had wanted to lie to her then, he would have about killing so many people.  So this was true. Had to be. Thank God. And science. (Even if she hears a mental whisper: what if Mum hurt him again?) Without blinking, she looks between his eyes like Mum does when she wants to see if she and Alec were making something up, and then says stubbornly,

"Good. Because you can't." Voice raising and louder, so as to alert the teachers if she had to, "You never could. She stabbed you once, she can do it again!"   
  
With eyebrows arched momentarily, lips curling before Marcus raised his hands in front of his chest, "Don't hurt me with your sonic voice, Lady Shimmer, point made."   
  
He smirks briefly again, dropping his hands and chuckling. If that's what the child thought, he wouldn't crush her dreams of her parents being indestructible; all children thought so and he believed himself a level or two above terrorizing children, at the very least.   
  
He chuckled again, more at his own thoughts than her raised voice and then nodded to Blair, adopting an eccentric nefarious and dastardly tone; all he needed now was a mustache to twirl.

"This is not the last you've heard of Noblecide, mark my words!" He grins and then winks, "Bye, arch nemesis."

He turns then, walking towards the exit, taking off the badge that read Grayson Greene and throwing it in the bin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last line of Marcus' still kills me. Grayson Greene. Damn him.


	12. The Right Amount of Melodrama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You really want to play with me? 
> 
> (This isn't a game to me.)

Checking the time on his wristwatch, he gets his phone out of his pocket and then dials the number as he walks down the sidewalk, phone raised to his ear as he waits for the other line to pick up, knowing his number was blocked.

It rang and rang and rang but he knew she would pick up, if only to yell at him for his last move.

Rowland had Blair- in his arms, at the moment, who was babbling information she'd want later. Rebecca was pretty sure that she had never heard him yell that much, or that loudly as he was now at the Headmaster. She usually was the one who cursed, or overpowered. Yet from the moment she'd heard the name "Grayson Greene," a name that was such obvious provocation, a fury had settled low in her so hot, she was cold. Freezing icy, cold.

She knew that nametag was meant for her.

When her phone rang, she realized she already had it out -- had been waiting. With narrow eyes, she excuses herself from the office - Rowland had it - moves into a deserted classroom, and then clicks it on, pressing to her ear and speaking without once looking at the screen,

"You really want to play?"

"It's nice to hear your voice too, Duchess Divineria." He smirks as he keeps walking at his own leisure, lips twitching. "Who's playing? This is much more than a game to me, Rebecca."

Tongue digging into the corner of her lips as she hears her daughter's hero name, Rebecca manages to turn her choke to a scoff. It was easy to do that, when you hated more than you feared.

"Ah! Finally, you use my title." She turns to the desk, hand toying with curved, red scissor handle as she continues,

Marcus chuckles, a sound at the back of his throat before he says more cheerily, "Mine is now Noblecide. Your daughter is quite extraordinary, I must say."

"Ingenious, but I think I'm still partial to Lord Dick myself."

Marcus tuts, "Such crass."

"No? So then, if we're not playing, this isn't the call where you tell me how easily you can get to those I love?"

He grins before he takes a corner, knowing where he was going, "I didn't think it needed stating, no, this is the call where I invite you out to lunch."

Her thumb loops the red plastic drawing it up, as she adds just as lightly, "Actually, it appears this is when you tell me what I already know." Her thumb stops just atop the blade, a heated hiss in her throat, and her voice darkens.

"She's eight, Marcus. Eight. I must admit, I hadn't thought you could sink lower but oh, how you reach for the flames."

He chuckles again and then takes out his wand as he reaches a door and taps it before stepping in, "I did nothing but have a chat and give her the ice cream I had so deprived her of by our previous meeting." He grins at her sarcasm, as he descends the stairs now.

"I'm well aware my daughter bested you, no need to remind me that was all you could do." Idly her tone is ever in contradiction, as she picks up chalk, needing to move still, "And we both know that isn't all you did."

Marcus reaches the basement floor and then leans on the wall, amused as she recounts their age old comeback. Really, how many times could they repeat that "they beat him" when here he was, continuing on? Definitely not beat.

She lets that rest a moment, dropping the scissors back into the cup, and continuing just as light as she'd started, "A proper date? Thought you'd never ask."

"Perfect. When are you free?"

Dragging the chalk across the board, she hardly hears it as she scrawls, still asking, "No kidnapping this time? How chivalrous."

"Consider the meal an apology for such kidnapping even though, Rebecca, don't you think the term a bit melodramatic? You said not London, I obliged."

"Let me be blunt, then. You won't see the new year turn. Melodramatic enough for you?" She stills as she hears him stop moving. Eyes narrow. Her words were crisp. "Friday. You choose where, and be sure to buy me a corsage. I prefer yellow roses, but white or pink will do."

"Sounds like the right amount of melodrama, yes." He smirks and then takes out his wand again, giving the room a little light but not for his sake, rather his eventual acquaintance's. "I choose? Splendid. Just tell me what time then."

The stairs creaked- oh, they were here already.

"Noon."

Rebecca ceases drawing, regards the runic symbol she'd drawn and then presses her palm deep into the chalk, leaning forward until she breathes the dust and her nails dig into her tangled hair. Her eyes shut. When she speaks, she's solid as stone,

"A little lighter dear, it's still not bright enough for those of us with human eyes." Her thumb traps a loose curl - but she can't see beyond him and she knows if she could just be less angry and focus she could -- but how could she turn that off? It was emotion in the first place fueling her spell.

Marcus smirks, though he was nevertheless impressed and possibly even more intrigued.

"Are you that connected to me when you don't even need to stare to know all this?" He grins now hearing the time.

She could hear his smirk as plainly as if he were in front of her, her eyes glued to it -- and so she echoes it as she says, "Noon. In public. You are not coming near my house."

"Noon it is. Though Rebecca darling? They're not human. Send Rowland and Jude my regards." He clicks off the phone with another little laugh before pocketing it.

She narrows her eyes. It couldn't have been other vampires, or there'd be no need for the lights. She hisses, to cover the sudden shiver of fear. His question had stayed with her, of course as she opens her eyes. This was a spell, something anyone could learn (though she perhaps had a natural affinity to such things) -- but as she pulls back from the rune, she decides frankly, she was going to lie.

Echoing his sickly sweet tone, "Ninety nine percent of the time dear? The staring's just for show."  
  
And she clips the phone off too, cutting his chilling laugh off. Pressing both hands to her forehead now with a long, long intake of breath and spinning around, the chalk she still held  _snaps_ in her hand, broken pieces ghosting down her cheek and landing on the skin of her neck. Goddamn him. Growling and cursing under her breath, she spins on her heels, skirt and hair flyaway, throwing with all her might the pieces out the open window and only then hears --  
  
"Mum?"

It was quiet, abruptly, like she'd started loudly and suddenly stilled, scared. Blair's fidgeting with her skirt.

"...Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?"  
  
Startling by the question, her face breaks open and she thinks for a second as she rubs chalk dust off her lip: how could anyone hurt such a precious girl as her daughter? Marcus, on the other hand, she didn't give a damn anymore what she knew of his past -- he, Becca was going to rip limb from limb -- but, she puts such violent thoughts in a box in her mind. Locks it. And hurries across the room to the open door, seeing Rowland  zipping Alec's coat up for him.

"No, darling, oh -- _no_."  
  
Her arms go around Blair's, one hand holding her hands together as tight as she dared, and the other brushing through her hair. A teary-eyed smile has replaced everything on Rebecca's lips.

"No, you did nothing wrong. You did everything you were supposed to, and more, okay? You're brilliant, sweetheart -- perfect." A desperate kiss meets Blair's forehead, and she clings to her, letting Blair gather her arms around Becca's neck. As she stays kneeling in the tight embrace, her eyes flick over back to Rowland, her face tightening with their mutual love, fear, and anger. Her free hand slides her phone in her back pocket as she does, a single nod telling her husband too clearly who had called.  
  
"Oh good," Blair exhales and nearly cries with the relief (but she wouldn't, because she wasn't a baby, she was a superhero and it was her mother who hugged _her_ just like Dad had and she didn't really know why they were acting so ... upset anyways.

"I didn't tell him anything." Blair swears to both parents, and her brother with wide eyes. She was proud. "Not one thing. Except that you don't like James Lowther, Mum, and that you're a giant, Alec, and that you're always reading, Dad but -- apart from that, nothing. Well. I also said you'd beat him again. Is that okay? I didn't know what else to..."  
  
"Perfect." She repeats, kissing the mess of curls atop Blair's head again and then brushing her lipstick off, smiling at her.

"Our brave, brilliant girl." She nods, undoubtably proud and flickering her gaze to Rowland again to say seriously, words weighted as bullets with promise.

"Mum and Dad will take care of it."  



	13. Confirmation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was at the desk, answering a phone call, a pencil tucked behind her ear as if it were forgotten there. Her expression pleasant along with the tone of her voice, he took entertainment, a twisted entertainment, to know he was enough to turn those sweet words into sharp steel.

Rebecca's Bed & Breakfast was a quaint and cozy place, that specialized in themes of different eras. Appropriate, he thought, and technically public. Or at least, public enough. She had said a public place and not her home, and he was a man of his word. He could have given her an address but what was to stop her from attempting something stupid like trying to ambush him? He couldn't have that, no, this was for the good of everyone.  
  
She was at the desk, answering a phone call, a pencil tucked behind her ear as if it were forgotten there. Her expression pleasant along with the tone of her voice, he took entertainment, a twisted entertainment, to know he was enough to turn those sweet words into sharp steel.

"--course, Mrs. Marshall, you trust me, don’t you? I’ve placed a second cot already in the room in case your grandson -- yes. Yes, and a complimentary bathrobe, please, I know how you love them. Oh, well, you are too kind. Really, ma’am, you’re going to make me blush." She leans forward, eyes darting down and tucks the phone beneath her ear, checking off a box on a calendar, "Now, I just want to confirm that --"

With very little effort on his part, he was behind her now, leaning over to click on the dial button of the landline to end her call.

"Do hope that wasn't important."

Before she could even draw the breath for the next words, she hears the line go dead. Stilling, she thinks of a panther curling in leaves, recoiling only to better spring. Blair had been drawing that morning, while she and Rowland explained to their children they were going to be out of school for a little while. Spend some quality time with their Uncle Brandin. Of course, even that was a ruse -- at this particular moment, Rowland had the kids at Giselle’s -- but she’d gone to work, just as if it was any normal day. All morning even, that was precisely how she behaved.  
  
She could not fairly say she had forgotten, but actively spent more than a moment’s thought on this man’s impending arrival? Not even a whole moment.   
  
Her back curls as her breath catches, her eyes narrowing and she continues without missing a beat,

"-- that you are in fact utterly unaware of the concept of personal space. Oh, hold on." Her words were clipped, and she frees the phone from her ear, using it as a baton to point at him over her shoulder, eyes narrow. "I knew that already. Thank you, confirmation approved."

She clicks the phone down firm, determined to keep her arm from breaking it. He had to hand it to her. Her heartbeat had jumped in the surprise but after it, it had gone back down to almost normal functioning. And the reason it hadn't was because it now beat with renewed if yet subdued anger and hostility. It was plain. The fear he had once so easily inspired was subdued to a point where it was irrelevant.

He smirked at her both her comment and the realization that he wasn't disappointed by the absence of her fear. It made conversations much more enjoyable, exchanges that much more poignant. In reality, it had been too long since he'd met anyone he couldn't intimidate at the drop of a hat.

She spins, folding her arms to her chest and glancing over his shoulder at the antique cukoo clock she’d been given from the Fayes.

"Nor can you read a clock. It is ten fifty-seven. I said noon. Problem telling time, Marcus?" Irritation had seized her voice, but as she hears herself a sudden smirk appears on her lips and she casts her gaze back. "Ah...wait." She points at him with her forefinger and middle squeezed together, words light.

"Knew that too."

The smirk turns pleasant as she turns around to face him. He ignores her comment about time (oh, she thought she was so clever).

"I'm afraid noon no longer worked for me, so I thought we could have a brunch instead."

Her gaze flicks back to his, and she shakes her head, "Afraid again? Here I thought you were just placating me when you said you were afraid around me, but..."

"I said wary, and yes, I continue to be just that."

Marcus had no problem admitting that much to either himself or her, but the word 'frightened' was too strong a word. It hadn't been a century and a half ago, when she had first attacked him with the truths he held so close to his breast, but no longer. She'd lost the element of surprise, though not various little surprises themselves. Theirs was a game of technicalities it appeared.

"As I continue to be flattered you think so highly of me."

Flattered? No. Grateful, yes, if it kept herself and her family alive -- disgusted, oh that too -- irritated above all, really. 

He took the pencil behind the back of her ear and then placed it in the mug where she kept the rest of the writing utensils, a handpainted one that read '#1 Mum'; just couldn't help himself. She swallows on a dry throat as his hand ghosts near her face, fingers idly pass through her hair and reaches behind her. Too damn familiar, she thinks, tongue clucking against the roof of her mouth. Otherwise, she doesn’t move. He did that -- just as he leaned behind her, just as he’d stood against her in the alley -- because he needed to prove his physicality still dominated: it was the only thing left he was certain did.

Little by little, she was stripping away all those things that for centuries had made him superior. Of course he’d overcompensate. Of course he wanted to overwhelm her. No, she wasn’t going to be idiotic enough to pretend her breath _hadn't_ caught a second, or that she hadn’t narrowed her eyes to stifle the rising skin-sensitivity when her hair came back down, but she wasn’t going to comment on it either. Her eyes simply follow his fingers, casting down until -- oh that bastard.

Blair and Alec had made her that mug together. 

"Or can you not leave work right now?" He tilts his head, offering with a pleasant disposition, "We could order room service."

"Now, Marcus." Her chin lifts and she curls her lips up, "You promised me a proper date. Taking me to my own place of work is hardly that."

Oh, sue her, he was driving her insane. 

"Now you're right, that I did. And forgive me for not being a bouquet sort of man, but this," he raised his hand now holding a white rose and presented it to her, a smirk on his lips, "will just have to do."

He was a man of details. He picked up on them, he remembered them, and he wasn't one to turn down such information as she had about flowers. Granted, whether she had any true inclination towards white roses he didn't know, but in their little game she revealed that fact and so he used it. That was how they worked.

Rebecca had said flattered. Damn him. Just as she thought in 1885: if it amused him to play the gentleman with her, it was much safer for her. Her gaze flicks down at the rose and her eyes narrow.

"White." She moves to take it, avoiding his fingers as she did, continuing to speak soft and clipped, "Why, you remembered. How you continue to flatter me."

"It's only flattery if it's false or exaggerated." Again, a technicality, and he was so very well versed in them by now.

Rebecca spins, takes the rose, and puts it right beside her pencil in the mug. It clicks against it, and she looks over her desk, not truly willing to turn around and just leave yet -- flustered more than she wanted to admit to by his showing up there. Her eyes settle on the photo frame - the image of her husband and children. Marcus simply let his hand drop again, putting it in his jacket pocket as he watched her turn to place it where she seemed to keep everything else. This was her desk after all, her personal workstation, a place where she could focus yet with a hint of familiarity- desks and offices were very important to the working woman as much, if not more, to the working man. He briefly wondered how long that rose would last there before she addresses him with her back turned to him. Without looking away from it, her question is spoken as if a car in idle.

"I suppose I should assume that by showing up here you’ve done a google search on my name, so tell me." She flicks her gaze up, but doesn’t look at him -- rather continues to look at the lobby of her inn, saying pleasantly, "Did you find it at all illuminating?"

He almost told her it was a bit more extensive than just a google search, but then again if the intent was there in the forefront of his mind, she could probably pick up on it.

"More entertaining than anything else." He took another step forward, just because he could as he spoke idly yet honestly.

She thought to take a step backwards as he took one forwards, but realized: she couldn’t. The desk was there, she would either hit her chair (which swiveled, and she didn’t fancy tripping), or the desk itself and she thought, she already had enough bruises on her back from the last encounter.

"Your twitter account in particular was quite amusing. Your friend Kim- she should really think of getting her own talk show."

Her head was still a bit dazed, she realizes as his eyes were narrowed so intently on hers, from the night drinking - no matter how excellent the hangover cures that Kim had sworn would work. Oh, the headache was gone, but mental acuity appeared a bit more out of reach than usual. Dangerous, she thinks with a little hiss, but potentially a good thing. Her mind relaxed, herself relaxed...at best she could See easier, at worst she wasn’t quite as witty.

Since she couldn’t step backwards, she just pulls herself a little taller as he nears her again. Her focus remains on keeping her breathing steady: that was the trick, with Marcus. Admit how you felt, tell him what he did that scared you. It made it clear there were parts of him that didn't. They didn't even warrant the use of a nightlight for a toddler.

"Ah, she’d be delighted to hear that. Well. Actually, you know then, precisely what she thinks of you. What they all do."

"It seems I'm not their favorite person, no," but, Marcus seems to say, he never fancied being liked. Even as a human, he couldn't care less about what would be more popular among his peers, he didn't care; he did what he wanted to do and for various other reasons as well, but it was never with the weight of anyone's approval or disapproval on his shoulders. Save, for a time, just one.

And yet here he was, as false-charming and smirking as ever and she shakes her head as her eyes cloud, speaking quieter.

"And that probably means you’re well aware how much they dislike my being here now. Yet, Congratulations Marcus, you frightened an eight year old -- and here I am. You must be so proud." Her eyebrow arches. "You have me, alone, as requested. Are we staying here? Because honestly, I won’t have you frightening my guests."

Tired of restating the fact he hadn't meant to frighten the girl (he couldn't very well help the fact that he was just frightening by nature) Marcus shrugs it off only to brighten again. It was abrupt, his smile, and that makes her wary.

"No, I did promise to take you out, I keep my promises. Most of them."

"Hope you don't mind," she would mind, "I'd rather not have anyone interrupting so let me just," he leans over again, only this time his hand drops to the waistband of her trousers. Keeping his gaze fixed on hers, his hand ventures into the back pocket before deftly removing her mobile from it, only dropping her gaze to look at her phone once he had it. Before she thinks of a reply she finds her gaze dropping, as her hips lift almost imperceptibly - except, of course, to those with such heightened sensibilities, as his hand came to rest. In an instant she raises, snaps her gaze back to his and slows her breath deliberately, refusing to blink, look away, or pay attention to how near her rising chest was to his. He inspected it quickly before flipping it over, using his nail to take off the back cover and remove the battery. The battery, he kept, but the phone returned, right where he found it.

"I'll give it back at the end though," he spoke quieter now, as if it was their little secret. "Don't you worry."

Fuck you is what she thinks, and it’s echoed in her eyes, but what she says is, "You know very well I do mind. I don’t care how _intimate_ you were with Claudia, I am not her."

He took her phone - plucked it straight from her back pocket -  but frankly, she’d half expected that. Well, she’d thought he’d tell her to leave it behind. So this time it wasn’t her phone she was counting on. Her eyes stay icy, narrowed on him as he inspects it. She could let him know how irritated she was by the overbearing proximity, how her heart skipped a little quicker, a bodies natural reaction to the awareness of danger, of thrill, of caution -- because that was what he wanted from her.

"And you don’t command me or know me as you did her."

Command her, well, he could easily do that if he so wished, and he didn't mean with imperius though either way she'd go kicking and screaming. He didn't want to make her submit though, he'd done that plenty of enough times with various other women in various different games, he tired of that.

If she was taking every other superiority away, she should let him see how this bothered her. (That’s what she tells herself. She can make herself believe it.) He eaned in over her, unblinking and resolute, in such bloody command. It only reminds of the other qualities vampires held; charming (when they want to be) was not their only tool or skill to attracting prey. Pheromones, which just flooded her throat and painted her cheeks rosy, he possessed in spades. Everything about his scent and appearance was meant to draw her in -- and for an instant she realizes, she was glad for her hatred, for how deep it was in her bones, glad she could easily recall so many horrific things he’d done -- or else, she might become one of hundreds who'd become his willing blood bag or whore. Rebecca refuses. She just hisses in, pushes his hand away from her back -- oh, all right, he was moving it away anyway or she couldn’t have done a damn thing.  Doing it anyways, using his momentum to shove, she does step back until she hits the desk, because screw it.

"The end?" She requests instead, rubbing her wedding rings in comfort as she ventured the question, "Where precisely are we going?"

To her question, he only extended his hand with arching eyebrows.

"I promise to stay in the country this time."

Without another word she puts her hand in is, stubborn, relentless and angry -- but she was not going to back down.

 


	14. Why

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And that's why you like me here."

They appeared next to a little restaurant in Cambridge. There was nothing overly special about it, except it was open 24/7 due to the student life around the place; students were as likely to eat fish and chips at noon as they were to eat them at 3 in the morning. Her hand jumps back to her chest and digs into her pocket, her back one, rubbing her finger over the ring again for comfort. She glances around. Cambridge, she thought, and her eyes narrow as she realizes the amount of university students. In particular, she thinks, the amount of sororities. Or did English schools not have those? Not the point. Right. Trust Marcus to find the pub with all the young, beautiful blondes.   
  
"You shouldn't speak too quickly about a woman you barely knew, by the way," Marcus continues comfortably. Well, that was quite ironic. "Frightful bad manners. I think it would surprise you to find how much you had in common before she lost her brother." Before I got there, the subtext screamed out to say.

He took a step back, just one, as she pushed him away to mollify her and just examined instead. Her heartbeat and her breathing, both affected, an involuntary reaction to his proximity and his touch, her skin flushing. For a moment, just a moment, she had been intoxicated. That was all it took in a hunt. One solitary moment where your guard was shattered around you. Rebecca Cowen, lady and impostor, was not immune to his charms. He should be triumphant, yet his smirk fades to mollified amusement.

"What a coincidence." Her eyes and brows narrow then flick wider, together as if taken aback - though she hadn’t been, though she had too great a knowledge of the depth of his hypocrisy, his amusement and the entertainment he took, so twisted, in such dark little ironies.

"In fact, I’d considered it bad manners to steal a person’s identity and body. So you’re right, Marcus." She hisses it, voice quieter too, "Perhaps we did have something in common."

Before he got there, he meant, before he’d twisted her grief and repurposed her being. Her eyebrow cocks.

"Ah, I see. Are you going to try and convince me you actually cared for her? Berate me for putting her down? How touching. Or are you saying for all my hatred I should be wary, or else you could twist me as you did her? That I might end up as her -- or rather, as you? Because I think we both know: of all that was done in 1885, of all the poor choices the woman made, you never gave a damn for her -- and were always the worthier villain."

And then he stares at her. Stares, and stares, observing and gaze trailing over her for a few moments that felt like hours under his scrutiny and she exhales, flush now as much with blood in her cheeks she knew as she was with simmering anger.

"You dwell on the meaning behind my actions with more precise detail than I do, luv." He shrugs, though he was pleased to hear her try to pinpoint the meaning behind what he did when he didn't even know it himself. That's what would work there because if he didn't know, she didn't know, and it worked to keep both of them on their toes. He just did what he felt like at whatever moment.

"We both know you haven’t cared for anyone, least of all yourself, save one. Well. Two." He nodded when she corrected herself, for he was about to interject there very well. Two. Well, maybe even four. He did care for his sons no matter how disconnected he had felt from them, and his wife, their mother, had grown to be the closest thing to a friend he had ever had. Yet he never cared for them with the fullest of his potential, for that had already been discovered and soon after, destroyed. These were technicalities again.

 _Alphonse_ , she thinks with narrow eyes riveted to his, _his brother was the dearest friend he’d ever had_. Losing them both had...broken, him; caused something to snap, and -- her breath was rising again as she thinks, no, she didn’t want to think about that, she couldn't. Instead, she says,  
  
"Actually, I should rephrase. Because the hate you’re feeling, towards me? That’s caring too, Marcus. You actually give a damn again -- that, is what I did to you. What _baffles_ me, is your calling it corruption, your saying I made you a bigger monster. You should know better than anyone on this planet that if you want to manipulate someone, corrupt them into a monster, the last thing you want to do is make them care."  
  
"But you have, Rebecca, oh you have." He smiles now, not a smirk or a grin but a smile, real and wide. "The worst kind of monster. You've given me back the ability to care and yet absolutely no one to care about. Or do you think I care about you?  
  
Eyes narrowed to hateful slits, she looks at him sideways. She releases him -- or rather, she thinks irritated, he released her, given how strong even his fingers were -- and retorts almost instantly,  
  
"I rather hope you don't."   
  
After another quick intake, she laughs, bitter, under her breath, "As for surprising me? It’s been too long since someone’s done that; I’d rather dare you to try." Marcus smirks again and shakes his head, before he quietly accepts her challenge of surprising her.  
  
"So sure Rebecca, whatever you say, you're right, you must know me better than I know myself."  
  
"True, I do."   
  
Yes, she knew more than he did -- or rather, no. She knew more than he let himself know, not more than he ever could. And it was also true: she did dwell on his past actions more than he did, she was the only one there still attempting to puzzle him out as much as he was struggling to understand her. Rubbing her hand up her own arm to trace away shivers with a nonchalant shrug, she says flatly,  
  
"And that’s why you like me here."  

That she wanted him to think about...and she wanted to regather her own thoughts and wits. Every step she made, she had a hard time trying to puzzle out her own end goal as much now as his. When she was up half the night, engulfed in Rowland’s arms in such a manner that she knew neither of them were sleeping (well) she realized, she didn't want to kill him. Oh, she wanted him gone. She wanted him dead. But she did not want to do it, and the problem was, anyone she knew of that might have a chance -- she wouldn’t want them to do it either. What did it solve? What would another murder, another violent renegade justice ever fix? Why, oh why couldn’t vampire’s just have heart attacks? Goddamn immortality.  
  
But he was here, he hated her, and when he did solve the song she was singing she’d be dead, her family in danger, and she knew it. Murderer, prey or corpse, she thinks again, the thought that kept her up all night even when the alcohol had dissipated. There were other options. There had to be something else she could do that would keep her family safe, their souls intact, Jude’s family safe and (and him alive) -- there had to be. Mercy, compassion, all the things that were occurring to her from romance novels -- she knew they were as faulty as murder, because Marcus scoffed her speeches away before, and didn’t want them.  
  
Or did he, and he didn’t know it? She wants to hope it, wants to think that buried somewhere underneath all his self-loathing and guilt was the human she’d seen crying three centuries ago, the one she’d seen laughing so honestly when he played games with his brother, the one she’d seen teaching his boy how to shoot an arrow. He had to be in their somewhere, she thought (prays), but honestly -- she thought by the time she found it, the search was going to kill her.

"That and you're easy on the eyes." He offers, still smiling wide.

"Ah, yes, sorry I forgot to add that." Rebecca says, voice dry even as she tugs her shirt down, as after all, he hadn’t exactly waited for her to take her coat to disapparate them.

"You do rather enjoy acting like I’m a doll. And I gotta hand it to you," Her hand brushes more loose curls caught in the wind, then gestures at him, "you must have invented that predatory stalker-stare. George Love tutored from you personally, didn’t he?"

Marcus chuckles only to shake his head.

"I'm not much of a teacher, luv, not even on 'predatory stalker-stares' though, those simply come naturally." Some of the random things that came out of her mouth, that couldn't be explained by her ability or her sanctimonious attitude, were usually the most amusing.

Truthfully, he didn't know exactly why he 'liked her there', or even if he did like her to begin with. He enjoyed watching her cope with her hatred for him, the price of it being equally coping with his hatred for her, a hatred he could better hide than she. He offered smiles, and smirks, and teases while she offered him scoffs and snaps and glares, and yet all of their actions were borne out of hate and in a minor extent (though dangerously increasing), out of curiosity.  
  
But he did want her around, otherwise he would have killed her, otherwise he would have kept away from her, otherwise he wouldn't seek her out like this. She would say something clever and snippy, like the retort of hoping he wasn't hungry, and it'd made sense to him why he would want her around- she was entertaining. And then she began her long and drawling speeches and he began to think he had a sadomasochistic side because no one on Earth had ever been that infuriating.

"You do everything that pops into your head that seems pleasing, right?" She cocks an eyebrow.

"Only once you’re finished, once you’re thoroughly 'entertained,' you move on. Bored. Or, so you say to yourself, but what that really is? You’re feeling empty. Searching and searching for the next random, pleasant idea - no matter who you hurt or kill, and nothing satisfies that endless thirst because," Rebecca stops walking, shrugs and turns back around, stares at him.

"If you don’t ever analyze why you’re doing what you are, then how could you ever know what it is you actually want? And if you don’t know what you want...then how could you ever be satisfied or happy again, Marcus?"

Why did she waste her breath? Why did she bother? Did Rebecca simply spoke whatever popped into her head at whatever moment of the day as she pleased? It must be. Speaking statements already known to him, except for one. She thought that he didn't know what he wanted. That was probably the most laughable thought of all. No, the problem was that he knew exactly what he wanted, and knew he could never have it, so instead of dwelling on it he continued to move forward with the Earth and time, but with no one but himself in mind.

Rebecca shivers, still flustered by his question, the challenging retort that had put her heart in her throat. Abruptly she realizes she hasn’t blinked in several moments, the chilled wind pricking at watering eyes. Unable to falter, unable to even let herself shiver again she shakes her head slowly, staring at him as intently as he did her, and speaks quieter.

"You don’t even know why you want me here. But no, Marcus, I’m not delusional. Lord, I wish I could be. _Lord_ , I wish I could be arrogant, self-righteous, and ignorant. I wish I could fool myself, wish I could believe that I’m the embodiment of some teenage dream with the sparkling, glittery vampires who glorify the abuse you perpetrate and have made it, I imagine, a hundred times easier for you to feed. I wish I could believe that I could just...I don’t know, power of some True Love spell you human again, change you. But I’m not a fool, and dear God, you’ve worked so damn hard for centuries to hide anything human about you it's invisible to even your supernatural eyes. And if I were ignorant, if I knew nothing, well." She shrugs a shoulder, but her heart was still at her own words, feeling an unbelievable pressure against beating. "Then my family would be safe."

Her thumb in her pocket rubs over her ring again. Protean charm, of course. The irony was she’d actually used the same spell before, right in front of him when he took her the first time a hundred and fifty years ago -- but why in the world, would Marcus Ellwood, think to take something from her that was only a silly, silver sentimental ring? She exhales, harsh. Finally blinking and shaking her head from side to side, Rebecca frees a hand to tuck wild hair back behind her ears, still with an intent gaze on his

"So, care about me? God, no. Until you care about yourself, you aren’t capable of truly caring for anyone else." Her eyebrow arches, and she challenges simply back, "But why are you asking me that question?"

Her lips twitch and she almost tuts.

"You asking me to save your soul?"

Why did she continue to waste her breath? What was it to her? Lord, how did one person shove that amount of enigma and sanctimony into one skirt? What did strike Marcus as surprising was hearing Rebecca wish she were delusional, as if this were the truest she had ever been. She wishes for things to be easier; what human didn't? She wishes she could change him but knew she couldn't, and what was most interesting was that she wished she had been ignorant from the beginning so that her family wouldn't be in danger now.  
  
They would have been safe from him eternally had Rebecca kept her mouth shut all those years ago. He would have kept his promise, returned her to Rowland, and he would have left. Yet this was his choice as well, he could simply leave her family alone, leave England for another century to see if they finally died away but he wouldn't.

(He was just doing what occurred to him.)

"No, that would be too much, even for you Rebecca." Marcus spoke lightly in contrast to the weight of his thoughts. "And I don't entirely believe it's there anymore."

He opened the door to the restaurant, a little bell ringing at the top once he swung it open and held it out for her with a grin.

"After you."


	15. In Fear and Loathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> { don't want to live, in fear and loathing...  
> i want to feel, like i am floating...  
> instead of constantly e x p l o d i n g }

As Rebecca walks by him, her mind was back on George Love. The serial killer who married women only to drown them and run off with their money in the early twentieth century had at least three guaranteed victims, all of whom had adored him. Loved til death do us part sweetheart, oh the tragic irony -- she'd been making a joke. Now as she looks at Marcus, she thinks: _it's possible. What is Marcus if not the Original Love Killer?_

Her heart leaps into her throat again. Wonderful, and Lord did she hope she was still just joking, that it wasn’t something she had said accurately out of some damn vision she hadn’t even registered? Why was it, she thinks irritably, he made it so easy for her to use that Gift even as it grew harder and harder to work any of it out? She wasn’t a psychiatrist, dammit, but Merlin - she needed to take classes in it pronto, if he intended on keeping her as a personalized, bloody therapist.  
  
She really shouldn’t think of the word “bloody,” around him.

Walking by him with a nod into the little restaurant, she casts her gaze around quickly to ascertain it wasn’t some trap: that there were actually people inside, that she wouldn’t find herself tied to a pole and fed from instead. Therapist and blood-bag, right? to forget how attractive she was.

(He’d said she might have more in common with Claudia than she thought.)  
  
When she was as certain as she might be that it was a normal restaurant, she waits until they’re at a seat before continuing, brushing snow off her neck and then resting her hand there. Her eyes stay locked on his. "If it’s not that - and thank God - then why do you think you want me here?"

Rebecca arches her eyebrow at him.

"Because you don’t know how I’m alive, how Rowland is?" Rebecca pretends to guess, knowing that's wrong. She folds her arms over the table and says slowly as her breathing and heartrate settle once more, "Because the thing is, you don’t really want me to answer that. Or how I know what I know. Either of them - you don’t really want to know."

The restaurant was open seating, not very busy with the late comers for breakfast and the early ones for lunch, so he found a table he deemed decent and sat down to wait for their menu's while Rebecca continued to speak. Or rather, continued to tell him about himself, eyebrows arched in that way that made it easy to forget how attractive she was.

"Not too soon at least," he admitted with a nod, "but I wouldn't say indefinitely."

Wonderful, Rebecca thinks. She wanted him gone, because she loathed him. That was usually how it worked. And yet here he said he wanted her there or the very opposite.

"My patience is lengthy but not unlimited. I've not yet decided why I want you around, but I suspect..." Marcus' brows furrowed as he realized something, and wasn't all too sure he was comfortable with it. But if he didn't say it out loud, she could do so herself possibly.

"...yes, it is because I loathe you."

Marcus tortured her like this, dropping by unannounced on Blair, yanking her off the street, daring and provoking Jude to attack him. He was content to coerce (not force, not demand or command, but manipulate so entirely only scraps of free will could exist) her to stay in his company, because...he loathed her. Because that was interesting?

Rebecca scoffs, her face breaking open and she turns away for a second, eyes fluttering shut and reaching for a hair-band on her wrist. _Well, fine then,_ she thinks, _I can hate you easily, I can give you that easily._ (No, she couldn’t). Hatred returned in spades to a monster was the most obvious, natural emotional reaction  _for_ her to give (and yet, no it wasn’t). The hair band snaps as she mutters.

"Unbelievable, un-fucking-believable." She has trouble securing her hair because she’s twisting it so unsteadily, and finally when she thinks the band is going to break she releases it and lets her hands drop back to the table.

"Let me just see if I understand this." Her eyes were narrow again, but she wasn’t paying attention to her heart rate or her breath anymore. Both were wild.

"Go ahead." Marcus orders. He steeled himself internally for whatever she was about to say because judging by her expression, by the rapid acceleration of her heartbeat, this was going to be a long one.

"You discover that there’s someone on this planet, after two hundred years alone, who is capable of finding and knowing things that should be impossible, and your first thought -- it’s not, that maybe you could see her again?" Her hand lifts, her palm cutting through the air, and her voice had abruptly broken, emotional more than angry, disbelieving more than anything. Incredulity in her eyes, her feet shuffle against the floor until she forces her ankles to wrap around each other and the she sits up straighter, saying in a quiet hiss, "It’s that you think it’s interesting enough to coerce me to stay here, so you can _hate_ again?

Why did she keep trying to understand him, and he was being as upfront as he ever could be, if it caused her this much anger? A pair of unlikely creatures they were.  
  
Yet in his mind, he wasn't the stranger one out of the two of them, or the more insane one out of them. See her again? Impossible, that was the very exact definition of impossible. No power, ever achieved or capable of being achieved would ever grant him that. He should snap her neck just for suggesting it, but he doesn't. He continues listening because there's a part of him that wants her to keep going.

"I just -- why? To punish yourself? To destroy the world that was so cruel to you, to prove you’re here? To make me into you? To -- you know what, it doesn’t even matter, why." Her hand comes back abruptly as she thinks, she’s still sitting across from him -- if he wanted to grab her wrist and break it, it would be as if he swatted a fly. She was right, it didn't matter why, because he didn't even know why but it was none of those reasons that she listed. Rebecca could list a thousand more and he'd find every single one of them wanting.

After rubbing hard over her eyes she drops her hands back to her lap and shakes his head at him, gaping, breathy and ... she’d rubbed away tears. "It doesn’t, because, this is not fair. I have every right to hate you. I have every right to loathe you."

He hadn't noticed his jaw was clenched and he hadn't noticed his gaze was hard and unyielding until they started softening in surprise just for a moment. What a peculiar choice of words, she had every right to hate him and loathe him. And she did, he wasn't challenging that, just her word choice.

Her hand snaps to her neck almost instantly, eyes narrow on him, but now, it’s to prevent further tears.

"You aided a woman in stealing my identity, let’s not quiver over the fact that technically it was a false one, so that she could murder my friends, hurt the man I’ve been in love with for centuries. You took Portia from Jude because she had the guts and the merit, to stand up to you, and you deemed that humiliating. You played games with the knights and laughed as they killed what they loved -- or tried to, anyway --" She was realizing a pattern abruptly, that over and over again he was making people kill the things they love and it made another pang strike her heart,* -- told me it was just an “experiment” to see if magic or love was stronger?"  
  
And no, goddamit, she wasn’t ever going to forget a minute of that bloody conversation as much as she wanted -- there she went with bloody, again.  
  
"You could have gone to anyone, anyone in the world who wanted Claudia dead that night but no - no you went to Rowland, because logically he could fool her, and because he was poetic, wasn’t he? Again, watching someone kill the image of what they loved."

Then there was the reminder of what he had done, said out loud for dramatic purpose, for the events needed no reminding. They rang in his thoughts as clear as they had centuries ago, but she continued and he did not stop her because he didn't know what she was getting at and he was in too deep to back away now.

And then it came, the punchline of the whole thing, if you will. She rubs her neck harder.  
  
"And then you tried to kill me too."

Her thumb digs into her pulse, and she realizes she’s hissing, but she knows he can hear every word as clearly as if she was shouting again.

"I have every, fucking right, to hate you -- so why, why on Earth, do you have to go, and say something like _that_? Why should I be saddled with knowing how broken you are? Why do  _I_ have to sit here, and know, and understand how goddamn  _sad_ you are, whilst all along just a tool in your own endless self-loathing? You think I can be that? You think, that I really am capable of being a mirrored projection of your ire and grief, that that’s all I’m supposed to be in this world?"  
  
Swallowing harshly, it’s on a raw throat and she shakes her head from side to side, desperately wanting to push back from the table and not knowing why she hadn’t yet.

"Fuck you, Marcus." She snaps it, and her hands unbind and she locks them behind her again. "I won’t be that person. Because that is not, who I am -- I don’t find hatred interesting or worth holding onto. All it is, is debilitating, destructive, exhausting, and sad. So, bleeding sad. I won’t be that person."

There it was: she hated him and she didn't want to see him. She didn't want to be stuck with him, because he made her miserable with his own misery and she was hyperactively aware of it, of how broken, and sad, and self loathing he was, and she hated it. Of course she would, anyone would, but that wasn't his fucking fault was it?

"You're the one who looked, you're the one who opened Pandora's box and now you blame me for what you've unleashed? You brought this on yourself, years ago."

"Yes, Marcus," she hisses in a low, brutal undertone on a throat raw with emotion, "You’re right, of course. How dare I try to be compassionate, or express my anger." Rebecca thinks how she had started off mocking the tone of a servant and still, bitterly poignant, she ends up sounding a lady with, "How dare I be human."

She folds her arms flatly on her chest and glares at him, glowering, saying in a low hiss, "And you know what? Now I do feel sorry for you. I don’t care if you don’t want it, because see, to me? That is all the more reason to give it, compassion. I do, with every fucking bone in my body, pity how hurt you are and how much you lost. I  _ache_ with it, Marcus. And I can tell you right now, with how much she loved you, the last thing on _Earth_ she would have wanted for you, is endless, immortal hatred."

There she went again, telling him everything she wasn't supposed to know, could never know, insisting she did. Rebecca almost laughs. He says nothing, because he couldn't be sure of what he would say next and that was too dangerous. It didn't stop her though, she talked and continued. She offered her pity, offered her compassion, but he didn't want it. He wanted...he wanted...

"Want to know how I know? *She arches her eyebrow at him. "Because this isn’t some big secret. You tell me right now, if the situations were reversed, if you could ever have wished this self-perpetuating misery on her. Tell me right now, that you wouldn’t have wanted the opposite, a full-fledged happy, life -- for Tali."

If he had needed to breathe, this is when he would have had the sharp intake of breath. This is when his heart would have skipped one beat after the next, this is when tremors would go through his hand involuntary but none of that happened, because he wasn't human, but he remembered. That one single nickname, what he called her and no one else did (absolutely no one else)...it was enough to make him remember.

Her gaze was locked on his, but it was clouding and she breathes sharp with her inhale as she tries to stay what she thinks at first must be tears: why else would her vision go so hazy? For an instant she sees Marcus’ rigid, statuesque outline with fuzzy borders and a black background, like his image was being photoshopped from this twisted reality. Her heart skips a beat, and then another. The cafe disappears. It was gone...all of it: the restaurant, the smell of fish-and-chips, the chattering of students worried over exams, the distant sounds of a clocktower, the automobiles. Instead she sees rolling hills and a clear summer sky, a countryside that looks sucked from a painting, like her tears had turned to ink and she blinks rapidly until the image is complete. Tremors slip through her hand, shaking it until she clenches a fist, locks herself in to the chair tight -- grief, loss, pain, anger, want, want, want -- she feels -- and then Rebecca’s simply...gone.

In her place, was a girl with auburn hair, younger. She's a tad shorter, or perhaps it was just that she was weighted with costume Rebecca would call period but she called modern. They're the latest fashions from the Parisian court, actually, and she twittered, teasing, spinning in a circle, playing with the skirts and enticing him to play with them too.

He was there again. In the middle of the 18th century, his family estate's was on top of a hill. The green scenery stretched on and on for miles, through more rolling hills and shallow valleys, following the creek that led up to their stables. That's where he'd be, grooming the horses to skiv off other duties. His hair was long and in a ponytail as was custom of the time, and him only 19, watering the horses. Servants' work that he willingly and gladly took on, before he was interrupted.

Arms would wrap around his waist and kiss his shoulder, and he turned with a reprimanding hiss of-

_"Tali!"_


	16. Tali

" _Tali--!"_

The sharp exhale of her name lost its edge the moment he beheld her. In that moment he belonged to her and he could deny her nothing. Marcus kissed her once and twice, an ear to ear grin on his face as he did.

"Are you mad? It's the middle of the day." And yet he was the one pressing his lips against hers repeatedly, with his hands upon her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, her arms, her waist, every single aspect he could find.

"If this is insanity, I should only wonder why I wasted so many years being sane."

Natalie has a square jaw that presently could not be seen. It was covered with little kisses, and she only aided the matter by twining her fingers in the base of his neck, toying with his hair to hold him to her tightly. That was all right, since they weren’t entirely free to be seen regardless. Yet that, as with his hastily gasped reminder, only endears the moment to her -- forbidden, desperate, and necessary, so necessary, to her life. She chuckles (and he steals it with his lips, so she chuckles again--stubbornly, and because she wants him to hear how happy she is).

Wild-haired and red-cheeked from excitement, from the rush, her kind eyes are framed with lush lashes. Mauve lips, today, a new tone she’d spent a few odd moments mixing herself. A deep violet-red - like a wine, yes. She’d tried to mimic the tones from Naples, when the grapes were still on the vine, too innocent to be picked and yet she’d snatched them anyway, smashed them to her lips and stained her mouth with the stolen joy.

Natalie smiles at him, arms sliding around his neck as she asks, teasing.

"Am I unwanted? I shouldn’t press my suit then, only beg apology for disturbing you."

No one spoke like Natalie did. She had a way with language many an author strive for, an elegance which just came naturally. Marcus could listen to the easy poetry to her words and phrases for hours, and had. How better to survive their constant separation? The days in which they were forced inside, attending their duties and pretending to hold no intimate knowledge of each other, he relied on just on the sound of her voice alone.  
  
She was intoxicating and refreshing, poisonous and healing, and she was everything. Out there in plain sight, when anyone might come walking up or riding up to see. Yet Natalie held him to her in a manner reminiscent of when the both of them found a room in which to spare a half hour, for every moment was cherished and stolen, especially stolen.

"You are possibly the farthest thing from unwanted." He assured as he held almost her entire face within one of his hands, cradling her cheek. "Insanity, it must be infectious. I fear my reason slips away from with every passing second, leaving nothing but foolish and mad desire to hold you close and never see you from my arms."

For a moment, there is a flicker in her face; she is uncertain even as she swells with pleasure at the words she had waited so long to hear from one she could believe. Sometimes, and especially in the beginning, she had felt something she described as guilt.

He kissed her first, unable to help himself as candlelight illuminated her beauty. Her mouth had trembled beneath his, her tongue licking out before she jerked back, composing herself as she ran a hand over her now mussed curls. And she thought, she should be guilty, so the pang in her stomach she named such and he respected her wishes. For Marcus always did, Marcus was the only one who ever did. Later, she realized it was only regret. Regret that she should be so tangled by luck.

Natalie had the misfortune -- and that was unkind, for Alphonse was pleasant company, and as duty-bound as she -- to have a husband given to her by her parents, looking only to sell her to the highest bidder. At the same time, she has the unadulterated pleasure (fortune was not a bright enough word) of love. True, amorous, unselfish love. The only regret she had was that the brother's ages might not have been reversed. Alphonse would have remained a dear friend. She'd be free to marry the man she loves with every part of her tiny, shivering body.

It would be, however, unsuitable to dwell on such. Not only did she know what true love really looked like, actually felt like, but it held her now. Marcus was smiling at her like she was precious and perfect (when in fact he was the only one who knew how far she was from both). and she finds herself chuckling, stealing another kiss from his lips.

"If what you say is true."

"And it is beyond a shadow of a doubt, Tali."

 _Tali_ , she thinks brightly, the name that of her girlhood. It was only Marcus that let her be _Tali_ still, even if she was no longer  _Tali Brackner_ \-- lifted her hands. She took the one of his not on her cheek, squeezing and tangling their fingers, ducking her neck without taking her eyes from his. Slow, she pressed his wrist to her lips.

He nodded with an earnest smile that grew wider as he watched. Soft pouted lips savor the inside of his wrist, marking him there with the color of the lip-stain she wore today. Was that a challenge, to see how long he could permit himself to keep the image of her mouth on his skin? Marcus wished he did not have to wash it away; how he wished he could let her mark him for all the world to see. But he did not spend much time on idle thoughts on what could be, for he found the whole practice of it simply detrimental. He had her now, and he would have her for all the days to come; it didn't matter in what way for she was in his life.

It was never his intention to fall for his brother's wife. He'd met her the same day Alphonse had, only to be struck dumb by her beauty. Later that night he had clapped his brother's shoulder, teased him that if a wife must be forced on him, at the very least he had one with Aphrodite's face herself. His brother had paid it no mind. He was not moved by his bride to be; his heart was already full of another. Natalie had guessed so before their wedding. She told Marcus such on a riverside bank, when she'd feigned a headache to slip out of another round of arriving relatives.

"Your brother. My dear husband to be," she'd told him, "is perfectly kind, perfectly decent, certainly handsome enough to consider myself fortunate indeed."

Then she turned to him. Her eyes sparkled, like she'd known he'd follow her, worried after her health. Tali tilted her head as if weighted with the knowledge as she finished the thought.

 _"_ And that's all it's ever going to be."

He hadn't known what to say. Was she upset? How foolish _was_ his elder brother?

There was no judgment in her voice when she continued, "He loves another. It's all right, darling."

 _Darling_ , she said, the word curled around her tongue with a light giggle. He'd forgotten anything else she said that afternoon.

Marcus still did not understand how his brother remained so unmoved. He could hardly keep his eyes off her. Tali had noticed quickly, with the air of one who spent years trained to notice male attention. For months, neither of them had brought it up. His subtle and 'innocent' advances first were teases to his new sister-in-law. In truth, seeing how devoted she was at their church services, it was only a fantasy he allowed himself to indulge in sparingly. He'd never thought she'd return his jests, his ribald, his banter. He never could have guessed she'd challenge him to work harder to make her blush. He had dared hope she would allow him to hold her. Then came the evening his brother was off hunting, the evening under candlelight and stars. And the moment he kissed her, he realized he was gone, over the edge, never to return again.  
  
Eventually she leaped off it with him.

The kiss lingered, as her long eyelashes flutter up at him, once, twice, and only broke away because she cannot stop herself from smiling. Her words are light air, playful. 

"Then I fear I must hope the fever quickens, the seconds melt to nothingness and am afraid I won’t ever call for the Healer. I shouldn’t be able to bear such illness alone." She kisses his hand again, squeezing tighter, and murmurs.

"Tell me I won’t have to, Marcus."

"Never." Marcus shook his head and brought the other hand to her cheek as well, pulling her, claiming her lips in a short but firm kiss, enjoying the taste of her mouth and her tongue. He could survive on her kisses alone.

"We'll ride through the fever together," he grinned, "and relish in the madness, burn with it in our hearts until it consumes us."

He placed another kiss on her mouth, using the back of his fingers to push tendrils of hair away from her face and behind her ear. The words were a gift, offered into her skin.

"I love you, Tali, with all my heart."

"As I love you, Marcus."

_It filled Marcus' heart to hear her spoke those honest words. To him, it was as nourishment, a sustenance, as was everything about her._

_With all my heart_ , she repeats under her breath. Then she let his lips take those words too. Chuckles pepper their mouths as she swayed in his grasp. Teasing, she pulled back to add.

"It is a splendid thing I have never been afraid of fire, then."

Tali gets that little smile as she thought of something she can share with him. It was a game of theirs. If they have to live in secrets, they would revel in them, luxuriate in all they knew that no one else would ever know. They're gifts, something else she can  give him she’d never given anyone. These things that had marked the depth of their advancing friendship would never be allowed to dwindle. Tali could not mark him with her mouth. He could not give her tokens of his affection to wear. So instead, they gave secrets. 

Truthfully, he likely had noticed her affinity for the subject - her fascination (Marcus noticed everything), but she’ll tell him anyway. Choosing to give was the point, showing how much she cared. His prior knowledge only proved that he knew her, that he listened. That fact was a gift too.

"There was this...little box, of matches in the locked drawer of my father’s study?" She tilts her head, pinching two fingers together and letting her other untangle her matted, tangles. The plaits Rosemary had put in her hair had all but fallen out. Don’t run, she thinks, and then she thinks she’d never truly done what she shouldn’t.

He smiled as she began to recount a tale of her childhood. Listening actively, he toyed with a strand of hair and ran smooth fingers up and down the length of her neck, each brush against sensitive skin a worship. She told these things to no one else; he was special to her as she was to him.

"I picked the lock when I was small, I ...  _think_ because I was looking for my Game of Goose pages, but," she shrugged a shoulder, expression flicking wicked an instant before Marcus’ smile chased it away. "I found the matchbox instead. And when I held one of the matches it just...burst to flame. I stamped it out myself, of course."

Even at six, she thinks, Father was more terrifying than flames. Point of fact, if she should be common enough to be afraid of a temperature it would be catching a [i]chill[/i]. Shivering made a ghastly feeling settle dread in her heart. It made her numb to the world. Natalie would choose the flames every time. Toying with the silver bracelet on her wrist behind her back, she tilts her head as she considered it, adding,  
  
"Though I would wager the stain’s still in the carpet." She chuckled, liking that thought greatly.

"Stealing into your father's study, picking a lock, lighting a match and all at the age of six," he teased her relentlessly, a bright laugh in the back of his throat. "Oh and defiling what was probably a very expensive carpet -- Tali, you're a wicked, wicked woman."

Marcus kissed her again.

He followed -- or no, that wasn’t right, for she’d never quite gotten away, like he was afraid if he let go he might not be able to catch her again. (She understands, she knows, so she lets him cling and pretends she’s not doing the same). Wicked, defiling, stealing, picking and lighting -- oh, this sounds like her. It shocks her how much the thought makes her smile, makes her heart quicken. When Natalie was a little younger, she thought she’d be a good girl. Why was it good girls grow into the most wicked of women?

A hand venturing to her waist, he whispered teasingly in her ear, "Try not to burn down the stables, my love."

"Ah, well..." Her gaze follows his, wandering adventurous hand and she smiles, slow and bright, "keep going and I believe I could not be held responsible for that blaze."

"So it is to be my fault, then?"

His other hand now drops to hold her waist, the pair of them gripping each side with only a fraction of the intimacy they were normally familiar with. His smile had become a grin that easily betrayed the thoughts underneath.

"Fair enough, I take full responsibility and know well the weight of my actions and the consequences that will transpire."

"Sounds serious," she said seriously, or as much as she can muster on a whim that was immediately betrayed by a twinkle in her eyes. She lit up in his presence. It was the same as the sky being blue. And filled with puffy clouds at the moment, appearing as shapes like cakes and angel's wings in the sky, floating around the bright midday sun, as if heaven was smiling down on them. Considering things, it might have been considered odd to think as such but Tali enjoyed her contradictions. And besides. Koake approved of love above all, did She not?

It was serious. Tali understood him too well.

The same could be said, if he thought hard enough, of their relationship in general. He knew what was to come if their affair, and he used the world lightly for he believed it to be much more genuine than that, came to light. Dishonor and shame, and hell-fire, maybe a lightning bolt or two to smite him down where he stood. No matter how grim a picture he could paint--and Marcus had a talent for painting grim pictures--it didn't change anything. He couldn't imagine himself doing anything else anymore. _Maybe in the beginning,_ Marcus thought. _Maybe before having gotten to know her, admire her, cherish her, and love her._ Maybe then, he would have been able to stop himself from going any further but it was far too late now. He tried to pay these things no second thoughts.

"Yet I’d say no fault should be assigned." She amended. Giving him a light laugh, she went on her toes to give the words against his lips. "Joy, yes. Pleasure, oh, mm, yes."

Her free hand cups his cheek and she holds steady for a moment. She needed him to listen. She needed him to pay attention, to believe her.

"I am happy, Marcus. Know that. For everything, I would not change a moment, could never change the fact you have my heart always, always will, always were meant to. _Always_."

Natalie smiled.  
  
There had been a momentary shadow in his gaze, one that was chased away with his own brightening gaze even before he spoke, like he couldn’t bear to look on her ill. Tali appreciates -- and understands, oh she understands -- but she said this anyway, because sometimes Marcus seemed to get the strange idea in his head that he was unworthy. Well she knew the culprit and oh how she despised the man, but she couldn’t help her little reassurances.  
  
It fits. His hand, warm on her waist, as steadying as an anchor -- still a contradiction. She freed his hand, her gaze casting over his shoulder as he leans over to hiss near her ear and she chuckles, dazed and breathless.

There was a shallow pile of leaves behind them, nearby the woods, though summer was not quite over. It puts widens the smile on her face as she thinks, soon there would be mountains of them.  Sky’s worth of reds and oranges, begging to be kicked and shoved and built with -- played with -- begging her to forget she was a grown woman. One who would likely soon be pregnant, she thinks, and that then it would be her children, who would jump in the leaves. In the back of her mind, Tali wondered. How soon would that be? The brother's did not seem to mind sharing her, in truth, though Alphonse didn't know the _extent_ to which they did. Be they Alphonse’s or -- as she admits secretly to herself but never breathed aloud, as she preferred -- Marcus’s, they would be _hers_. When they're tired of running and jumping, they would relax, too winded to laugh and just lay there in the piles of leaves.

 _Not yet, please._ The eighteen year old still had time. So she lifts her hand, grazes his cheek and asks in an playfully pompous manner, "Marcus, would it be terribly wicked of me to ask you to," she chuckles, knowing how it would sound (knowing how it would end up, inevitably) " jump, in those leaves with me?" There’s a glint in her eye as she smiles at him. "And perhaps roll. I suppose. Perhaps romp. Looks as if the earth has provided for us a bed, in any case."

His eyebrows lifted at her request. Granted it was not the oddest behest to have passed her lips. Marcus wondered whether he would ever cease being surprise (and delighted) by her whimsical nature before he chuckled.

"Certainly no more wicked than your last request." He takes her hand again, winking. "And would that I could deny you anything at all."

A moment later she tugs his hand and forgets all manner of seriousness. She pulled him towards the leaves, teasing at the top of a lilting voice as she darts around a mare whinnying at them.

"As to that last request well, I would not be made cross if you wished to do so again. You know you're welcome to always, don't you?"

_Always. He wasn't sure to which man that word was more poignant to: the young man enjoying her company at that moment, laughing with her, enjoying her, enjoying life, thinking that there was nothing on Earth capable of keeping him from happiness or from living the way he so desired. Or was it the man who watched on as if from above, lost in the memory of a time when everything seemed much simpler. Even in the midst of the scandal, things always seemed much simpler, back then, in her arms._

Her skirts were in her hands, lifted as she ran, jumped, landed and rolled. She knew the impropriety, knew the sin, but did not care. Natalie was comforted more by Marcus than the weak earthen bed. He was everywhere in the little pile with her. The world’s devolved to a rush of flowery reds and greens and pinks. His flesh is warm as it embraced her everywhere. There was nothing but bright colors and him. His hands, his knees, his hips - his lips, his laughs and kisses and endearments that sends such shivers up her spine. _They should stop this_. 

_They wouldn't dare_. It's the way he tells her the things she desperately needs to hear. He tells her that she's beautiful, dangerous, unleashed; beautiful, strong, full of light. In her sheets (or his, or the hay, or leaves -- wherever they can, wherever they can spare), he's ghosting her thighs with feather-light breaths, touching, exploring, bruising with lithe fingers. Burning through her skin with his kisses as if branding her with his mouth. Her back pressed into the earth and she hated her hands for not stopping its trail down his stomach, hated herself for enjoying it all the same. It's overbearing and all-consuming but then he kisses her right there and it used to be all sorts of wrong, but the sear of his lips is just—so— _right._   
  
And he can do all this and be later the model of deceptive innocence, never betraying a word of it. It makes her feel special. It makes her feel alive. For she is loved, and that was everything.


	17. Building a Bridge

_Ah, well how she knew a tryst began in such summer heat and laughter._ The first thought Rebecca has is that the moment was private. So secret, so forbidden, so clearly something she should never know -- never share. Privacy and decency might be laughable concepts between the two of them, but she shouldn’t see this (though that felt the wrong word, because she was no where to be seen -- but present, like she was the creator of the world, everywhere) -- and when she realizes she was thinking again, she realizes the connection was going to sever, whatever had seized her would end soon and pull them back and -- and --  
  
\-- _ouch._  
  
A blossom of hurt gags her as it ripples through her chest. She turns (how was she doing that? she was bodiless), closing her eyes abruptly, more than willing to let Marcus stay (desperately willing in fact, wanting, wishing that he could stay and feel and enjoy and never leave again) -- but she tries not to watch, tries not to intrude, wants no part in ripping him apart any further -- what would that say of her? What would it help?

It was a memory, a precious one, an enjoyable one for he remembered too well where that headed (where all their meetings headed) but it was all it was. As real as it had felt at that moment, it was gone a second later. Transported back to the loud and much crueler world he lived in. Too distraught to even wonder how that had come about, how he could have seen and experienced such a memory so vividly, he instead raised a hand to his mouth, wiping it before just leaving it there, his thumb brushing his bottom lip. He could have almost sworn they would be swollen from use but no, his lips didn't swell or dry, his skin didn't bruise, and that was just a memory.  
  
It took a few more seconds to remember Rebecca was still with him. She, the cause of it all, the reason he had relived such a tightly held moment. Marcus was unsure whether he wanted to thank her or rip her sternum out of her chest with his fingernails; whether he wanted to get up, leave, and never see her again or ask her to do it again. Contradictions were leaving him at a standstill, unable to move, unable to meet her gaze just yet.  
  
His hand falls again on the table, to the other one, feeling it would be safer there. He closed his eyes for a moment, forgetting the argument that had led him and Rebecca there, sitting across each other in a restaurant with more students and couples, both young and old, piling in for seats.

She thinks for a moment when she realizes she’s no longer bodiless, that she can hear the whizzing double-decker and call for sauce, that he very well might kill her now for having seen. Or rather, for having tantalized him with precisely what he wanted (though even she didn’t know how she had -- since when could she share visions?) and then pulling it away again. That his aching loss would make him lash out and kill the person that had represented it.  
  
Then she realizes: it was absurd to think he’d hurt her. For all she had done was show him the one he loves again -- more visceral than a Penseive or recollection, as she could touch him again, he could (and had, many times) kiss her again. One so filled with love would not hurt her in that moment. Not anyone.

The hurt was the underlying emotion here, the pain. Happiness was fleeting and love that...that was all but corrupted under the weight of so much suffering, the collective suffering of nearly 300 years. The memory was a torture, one both sweeter and crueler than he had ever divined.

Yet when he looked up again he saw not triumph or smugness (and both would have signed her death sentence) just...well, he didn't know how to describe the expression or the emotion behind it, but the anger towards him, the unrelenting hatred and loathing had burned away if only momentarily. Now for that he was undoubtedly grateful for at the moment, even if his lips would never admit it.

As she looks up, her blue eyes soft and hooded, there’s no anger or fear left in her. She feels rounded out, every muscle soft and pliant, every breath shallow and calm. It’s a relief. To not be so brutally angry and sharp, so jagged around him (or was it jaded?). Loathing was exhausting.  
  
Rebecca just holds his gaze. A few times she opens her mouth, but she realizes he’s not truly seeing her yet - his gaze was on his folded hands and he was still, perfectly still with a look that...oh, she knew what she would say.

"If Blair was here," her words were matter-of-fact, somber but with a soft smile because, Rebecca knew it was right, "she’d give you a _Blairiffic_ hug. That’s what Alec calls it, in any case. It’s more a mass of gangly limbs launching themselves hard into your side, and you being grateful the lion’s mane of hair cushioned her skull. But she says it’s Blairiffic. For you, I think she might even do it twice."  
  
She spoke of her daughter, the eight year old natural calamity that had amused him not 48 hours ago. The thought of the girl, so small and yet so powerfully stubborn on the fact her parents were going to best him, win and defeat him, offering him anything right now was enough to get his lips to start moving again, curling up in amusement yet unable to form a smirk even though he was trying.

"Not afraid I might drain her dry?"

There’s a momentary twitch in the pink pocket around her eyes, tugged in unison with the knife in her head, and she melds the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Every part of her was exhausted, she realized, limbs heavy, head spinning -- but she wasn’t tired enough not to say.

"Don’t do that. My daughter’s life isn’t a joke."  
  
And she thinks it’s just the mother-bear nature that gave her that spark at all because she softens a breathless, heavy silent later. He spins, searching out the bar and restaurant but she’s...not surprised they weren’t approaching the table (who knew what they’d looked like, if they’d been approached when enthralled in her vision), and she doesn’t look away from him. She’ll wonder later why it was she couldn’t. Not now.  
  
Now she only softens to rephrase, with her own little lip quirk of a ghostly smirk, "Myself on the other hand, no, I am not afraid you’ll drain me dry."

"Fair enough." Even though everything was a joke in the end, absolutely everything. After all, it was funny how quickly it was to come back to his mind, to his mentality. It was almost as if he'd never left, just with a few more knifes stabbing him as he remained seating.

She wasn’t. She wasn’t afraid of him, she couldn’t fairly even say she loathed him anymore -- but she couldn’t say she liked him or his company either, not the present him, not when it filled her with such hurt and anguish. Frankly, she didn’t know what to feel. But she couldn’t leave. And she couldn’t look away from Marcus, like something was binding them together. She’d had that same feeling once before -- she thinks dimly, but then it had been uplifting, then it had been a feeling of heart-fluttering and butterflies and warmth, so much warmth...the first time she’d seen Rowland she’d known she was meant to know him. To be with him. Forever. And there was a word that had such consequences to it, and yet she’d never even thought for an instant it wasn’t true...

This was different. This was darker, this was harder in some respects (eleven months spent thinking she might never see Rowland again without being able to give up hope was paltry next to two centuries); this was heavier and hurting -- but it had one, indisputable similarity. Her outburst earlier, what felt like decades ago, that she didn’t see why she should be burdened by this even if she had asked for the knowledge, that it wasn’t fair -- it was true, but it was pointless. Something in this universe had meant her to do that. She couldn’t put anything past the universe anymore.   
  
And frankly the universe had better have learned it couldn’t put anything past her either.

His mouth closed again, jaw clenched for a moment as he looked sideways towards a server (how long had they'd been here? it was lousy service) but all seemed intent on ignoring this table, or so it seemed to him. He turned back to Rebecca and just shook his head.  
  
"Don't refer to her as Tali ever again. Only I called her that, and only I will ever use that name, understood?"

It would have been smart of Rebecca to be afraid for her own sake but hadn't she already proven that she wasn't going to be stubbornly foolish and go against every single fact and not have fear for her own life? That wasn't surprising, but it didn't stop it from being any less confusing.

It was a demand and not a request, not a question, nothing else. That name was his, his alone, for he had nothing else of hers. She'd said he had her heart but he had lost it probably around the same time he'd lost his own, so, it was her name, from him to her, that he held on to.

"I understand." Rebeccae says that quietly, but without looking away from him. It was, she thinks, the first thing she’d said in a long time to him that had no other motivation besides the truth. So she continues in the same vein, folding her arms over themselves and leaning a little closer, admitting, "I’ve never done that before. Not that way. And certainly not with someone else seeing what I do."

He looked up again as she decided to explain, at least half way, the circumstances of what had just happened. That's how she saw them then, in her mind, she saw the memories and the information as visions, not only words or plain knowledge although he had doubt in appeared that way too, but she actually  _saw_ it and for a moment he wondered, and stored this inkling for later use, whether he had sincerely misjudged the practice of Divination.  
  
She keeps her eyes locked on his. Her words were quiet, calm, but purposeful now and with plenty of breath to support it. "You, did it. I have abilities, yes, the same as one might be good at fishing -- except I suppose some might call them impossibilities too, and I can’t deny that either. But it’s inconsequential.  If I was the bridge, then you built every stone and you still chose to cross. The only thing in the world that could have given such strength to that, was love, Marcus. Yours."

He did not dwell on it for too long for the next words were enough to throw him for a loop. Rebecca was claiming that he had brought on that shared memory, not her. That he had brought it on willingly, welcomed it, cherished it- he began to shake his head.

"It wasn't me, it was you..it was," he gritted his teeth again and then moved forward, his eyes were wider, clearer than they had ever been before but not calm, never calm.

She doesn’t flinch (though her blood did rise, she thinks, her breath hitching) as he startles closer to her, because she was almost so used to his proximity now it only seemed to fit. And ah, how recently that thought that would have enraged her, yet now it just...seemed another twisted fact in a long vine that had twined around them both and squeezed until neither of them could breathe. Much. 

"How? And don't give me that poppycock half answer- it was like I was there. I saw everything and I  _felt_ everythi-- how? What is it that you do, how is it possible? It's madness."

She chuckles, even if it’s only once, and it’s small and bitter, lacing her quiet echo, "Poppycock?"

Now there was a term so inherently British, so inherently dated...she loved it, actually but her brows just knit together.

"But I didn’t do--look. Marcus, it’s magic. Or science, physics -- call it whatever you like, it’s something...something that is part of this world as much as anything is, part of the universe. I’m...atuned. At least more so than most, because I don’t see it the same way. I don’t see anything the same way others do. Time, I suppose space, but time--time especially, because it’s cyclical. Not linear. Endings are beginnings, beginnings are endings it -- it is  _so_ hard, to explain."

Marcus was only belatedly realizing that she was giving him as much a truthful answer as she could. There was no lies in her eyes as she explained what she believed to be true, the magic, the science, the universe and how she observed it, as one giant non-linear cycle. It made very little sense to him, especially now in his state, but it was an explanation and isn't that what he had wanted from her? Well, he was getting it, just not in the way he expected or wanted.

She shakes her head, screwing her lips up and trying to think how she could possibly explain it without explaining it, or understanding everything herself. Thank God she was so adept at defying impossibilities.

"But just like when a child gets angry enough they suddenly find themselves casting spells they didn’t know, that emotion? The emotion we later learn to control and utilize for spells wand less or not? The only thing that I did in that moment, was want. In 1885, I wanted to hurt you -- no, I wanted to kill you. So that’s what I saw. Just now, I wanted -- want, to see something good in you. To believe it’s there. Wanted it desperately. And..."

He almost laughed, and it would have been a laugh filled with less bitterness than it had been or would be for a long time but he stifled it, to hear her say that because she had wanted to kill him was the reason that she saw the memories she did that night; the one of his fragile human body cradling Natalie's broken one after he had found her and his brother in the woods. He had not seen her alive one last time, was not able to say goodbye.

She grits her teeth knowing how it sounded (presumptuous, but with a small curl to her lips), but she doesn’t blink or look away.  "...when I want to see something badly, I just, do."

There’s a pause and she says quieter, admitting, "You taught me that. Actually. In 1885. But tell me, Marcus," because she couldn’t help herself, because she couldn’t help but want to help him now, and because she could never resist challenging him, "which was more powerful? When I was filled with hatred, or when you instilled in me, your love?"

He exhaled without a need to do, biting down on his tongue as she explained this memory was brought on this time by she wanted to have the good in him. At that he smiled, a sad, bitter, disbelieving smile. There was nothing good in him anymore. Re-lived memories weren't going to change that.

He said nothing. So, neither did she. In fact, she does nothing. Smile, frown, laugh, cry, blink -- breathe, she couldn’t do anything, anything until she saw the broken smile cross his own lips. Lips she’d seen both painted in blood and stained purple by kisses, that now were only pale - pale, perfectly sculpted into a smile that sang a hundred different ballads in her mind on broken piano strings.  
  
And she lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and smiles much the same back.

He leaned back once more in his seat, eyebrow arching as she asked another question and it took all his willpower not to scoff it away. Instead he shook his head again and pushed the chair back, standing.

"If they refuse to serve us, we should just leave. There's a few more cafe's around the corner." He turned and started walking and frankly, honestly, at that moment he didn't give a damn if she followed him or not. He needed to be alone even if the latently human part of him didn't want to.

Now he was moving, turning away and she sits blinking for a second. He was walking away. She was free to go. In that moment, she realized, she was freer than she’d been in two centuries. The dismissal of the restaurant was fine with her. Frankly, she’d wanted public, she hadn’t wanted to -eat- with Marcus, because...well because it put bad thoughts in her mind of what he actually drank.  
  
Maybe that was the reason she got up. Maybe it was the remembrance that if she let him walk away girls would end up drained of blood -- willingly or not, perhaps not all the way but - why should he stop, especially when he was so convinced he was only pure evil and resigned to it, relished in it? You’ve made me a bigger monster... That she thought maybe after all she could help -- not change him, but rather, realize what he’d just proven to her so entirely was already there.   
  
Or maybe it was that with all he’d just experienced she now  _was_ a bit terrified what he might do to prove her wrong, prove there was no good in him. Maybe it was just because Rebecca was stubbornly moral and she couldn’t let him walk away thinking he might be about to kill someone. Even if he wasn’t planning on it, and he wasn’t, because for all his conspiratorial genius, Marcus still acted mostly on impulse. Whatever the reason, it was her choice. Her choice as it was the day Rowland had begged her there was another way and she’d said she’d go with him willingly. _You can tell me to go, but you will never make me run._

 


	18. The Deal I'm Making

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wanna feel how it feels?  
> You wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?  
> You wanna hear about the deal I'm making?  
> You be running up that hill

Rebecca follows. He was walking at an easy pace, not looking back, and she waits until they had turned a corner and waits until they were near a deserted boardwalk. Her eyebrow arches at him again, her hands digging in her jeans pocket and she remembers, adding and saying flatly, but with a tiny smile on her lips,

"You, stole my phone battery. I’d like that back."

He took the lithium battery pack out of his pocket and held it between his fingers, lifting it up before stopping in his steps and turning to offer it to her. Never mind that he knew there were a dozen other reasons Rebecca could have chosen to follow him and an easily replaceable battery for a phone that was mass produced by the millions, wasn't one of them.

"I knew there was a reason you'd followed."

And then because in that moment she genuinely could give a damn about her phone battery she says to him, quite simple.

"I’m impossible. Right?" She won’t wait for an answer. "I should be dead.  I shouldn’t be able to see what I do. I shouldn’t know what I do. I shouldn’t have been able to fool Damocles, or know when you’re lying -- none of this and all of it, and there are answers, there are lots of them, but you can’t figure it out, can you?"

She cocks her head, trying to restrain a chill. Ah. Right, she didn’t have a jacket.

Ah, was this another lecture? He returned his hands back to the pockets of his jacket as he listened, unable to deny the truth behind her words. She was remarkably on the dot with his thoughts, at least, his thoughts about her. She was impossible, she wasn't supposed to be here, and she wasn't supposed to do what she did and yet here she was and she seemed quite determined to stay and even with Rebecca telling him exactly how it was that she saw and understood her ability (perhaps 'exactly' was too strong a word), he still wasn't one step closer to comprehending.

"So if you’re wrong about me." Rebecca continues, "You could be wrong, about this. Marcus, I do have to hand it to you, you’re incredibly powerful. Intimidating, incredibly proficient and can be exceedingly cruel -- and charming, that too, when you want to be. So it’s not like I don’t understand why you think that it’s hopeless. But."

She shrugs both shoulders up, brows furrowed together.

"Here I am. Alive and well. Sans the thousand wrinkles and white hair and well, for all you know I do have them, but you don’t know. There are things you don’t know. Things that can still surprise you. And considering all you do have going for you, there’s absolutely no reason on Earth that some of those surprises shouldn’t be good ones. I’d say the Earth owes you that, anyway. I’m not it’s biggest fan."

She spun this into an intricate puzzle, one that seemed to grow in size the more he uncovered it, and was in the same way attempting to twist his...existence, into a puzzle that she needed to solve. Marcus almost smiles. For all of her talk of not being a tool of his own self hatred, she could do a remarkable job of it.  
  
"All that I have going for me?" He repeated, his eyebrows arching before he asked dryly.

"What is it that you mean my charm or my cruelty?"

"Neither." She speaks as calmly as he did, even with her breath remarkably upticking as ever with his encroachment. The breeze took her hair, pricks her eyes, but all she spoke was serious, unflustered and unflapped by either chill or his sardonic wit (though she thinks a moment she should thank Damocles and Nate both for making her so immune to that). "I mean the fact that you could live a thousand years, learn more than I ever could however many lifetimes I may wind up having. You have a near limitless capacity and thirst for odd bits of magic, and the time to learn it all. That’s something."

And I suppose it starts with me, she seemed to say in subtext, despite how fervently she’d been wishing he’d just disappear before.

He paid little attention to that because he knew all what she was telling him already. Every man needed a hobby, especially when they had the capacity to live forever as Rebecca put it. Yet learning quickly became monotonous and Marcus gave in to other temptations, other wants, more wreathed in destruction rather than knowledge. A century's worth of spinning a web so tangled.   
  


He shook his head and then took a simple step closer, to drop his voice to something only a step above a whisper.

"I admit that there are things that I don't know but there is a very fixed, very poignant thing that I do know and that is is that she is dead. There is no changing that, there is no bringing that back, she's dead."

The problem was it didn’t matter if he wasn’t in England; he’d never disappear for her, not entirely, not unless he died and frankly...she couldn’t. Not at that moment, not at any, unless it became a choice with saving her family -- and she refused to think it had to be that way. He was stepping closer again. She doesn’t blink or look away, barely even notices him over her, so locked on his eyes and emotion as she is. She nods very slowly. Her heart was achin, desperate, and wanting...wanting so badly.

"Maybe not."

He stood straighter again, backing up away and shaking his head.

"I don't want anything else from the world."

Maybe, she thinks, because she had a very hard time putting limits on anything with love.

"Though I wouldn’t stack love against anything in this universe. It wins. I told you that once before." She waits until he’s backing away, straightening up -- so certain -- and lets a few moments fall silent between them, eyes locked unblinking on one another.

She continued with her eternal optimism. Maybe not is what she offered him, and with very good reason, he didn't accept it. Just shook his head again.

In a realistic point of view, he was stuck in a vicious cycle of bloodlust, rage, and boredom that spun in deeper while he rested his head back and kicked up his feet, riding down on the coattails of his demons. Yet there was truth in her words ( _had he not told himself he should believe very little of what she said anymore? was there anything about this woman he could say with unlimited certainty?)_ , in an optimistic point of view. And then she tilts her head and speaks even quieter.

"What about what she wants from the Earth for you?"

Her eyebrow arches, seeming to say simply: _I could see that too._ Marcus comes to a still at her question. What would Tali want from the Earth for him? Forgiveness was his first thought, and at the same time it was his only thought. Because contemplating how she might look at him, how she might feel, knowing the things he had done throughout all these years- that was the first time in his entire existence he had been glad for her death.

"Don't know, can't ever know can I?" He crosses his arms now in front of his chest after a sigh.

"Can you? Marcus, are you still underestimating what it is I can know about a person?"  
  
Can’t ever know, he said, and all Rebecca could think in sadness was how ignorant he was. He’d call it “realism,” say that she was being foolish, naive, young (she has to call back a laugh at that thought, considering she felt eons older than him though in truth, she wasn’t). No, she could not resurrect Natalie, and she couldn’t talk to her from the beyond -- for if she hadn’t come to see him as ghost yet, she clearly had crossed the veil. The trouble with it was his trouble with everything associated with her, in the end.

Marcus snaps, "Maybe I don't want to know."

That was probably the realest thing he had said to her so far. Maybe he couldn't even consider it, whatever it is that she would have to say, would rather live an eternity without knowing and live in fear than to have it come true. Even if it could come true and it couldn't. This was more than just impossible, it was something tenfold and beyond it.

"Are you determined to continue talking to me at the expense of your business? No wonder saylorpatty81 rated your Bed and Breakfast 2 and a half stars."

The small, smile had reappeared. Rebecca spins the battery back and forth between her nail, tapping the top of it, repeated. She won’t blink or look away from him, because she wants her simple stare (tap-tap-tap) to do the job of unnerving him as it had for decades. Decades before he confronted and convinced himself to live with it after she’d spoken to him, (tap) yelled at him, stuck knives in him (more literally than she’d done today she meant, still tapping).  
  
And then she stops, eyes locked on his, shoulder coming up and saying simply, "Patty Saylor is a crook who technically owes me a bathrobe, a pair of slippers, and a candle. But see, I have this thing for forgiveness. A sickness, really, been addicted to it since I was a little girl. Probably read Beauty and the Beast one too many times, or something like that."

"Hmm, well with a name like Patty Saylor, I can't blame the woman for petty theft."

 _Okay,_ Rebecca huffs exasperated at his stall, _enough_. She takes a step forward.

"Like I said. Time isn’t linear. How many different like memories could there have been, that I might have seen? How many summer afternoons were almost exactly like that? Yet that’s the one I see -- that -we- see? I said it was your love. Thing is," She tilts her head, "you can’t honestly fall in love alone. Not true love, not like yours. She was pulling you there too, Marcus, just using me to do it. And she just so happened to point out for everything, you have her heart always."

Very quietly, "I truly don’t believe in coincidences any longer, Marcus. Not after what I’ve seen."

"Listen to yourself." If she kept speaking about the power of love he might have to hit her over the head with a 80's power ballad record to shut her up. He could be friendly after all. " 'She was pulling me there' stop. Stop, Rebecca, can't you hear the madness in your voice? Let it go."

If this was to be a contest of stares and gazes, he could play along just as well as she did. Her stubbornness was only matched by his patience, but in reality, they both had different places to be. Right now his destination seemed to be _anywhere but here_. 

Her eyes shut briefly, as she feels like a two-by-four hit her and she nods, very slowly. Well, ow. She wants to tell him in that moment that Natalie would never have given up on him, could never have but -- she didn’t know, not yet, and more than even that -- he wasn’t ready to hear it. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to forgive himself, so how could he expect someone he viewed as perfect to forgive him? The fear he had to live with of what she would say had to be crippling. Unbidden the words she’d spoken to him once come back, _“And then you became the very thing that killed her, Marcus...”_ ...how could she have been that cruel? How could --  
  
Oh, right. Because he was a psychopathic vampire who for some damn reason the universe had decided should take up residence under her skin and work over time to suck out all her altruism before nearing her blood. Her nose wrinkles and she opens her eyes again. So, maybe it had to be someone he viewed as far from perfect in the first place who could say it. Someone he, say, loathed. Oh, what were the bloody odds?   
  
Whether it was her penance for what she’d done to him or not, she decided she just was going to chalk it up to “proving to him (and herself) that she was the bigger person,” and she nods absently at “let it go”, then ignores it. Instead, she says, with a step forward,

"No, what’s madness is whatever it is you’ve started in this country." She takes another step forward, both hands deep in her pockets now (safely with her phone battery) and then shrugs shoulders.

He didn't start anything in this particular country, he thought to himself. This was just a row of dominos, falling down, and England's domino was set to fall as well in due time. He hadn't even been the one to push the first one down, he had been the one instead to put them all in place. Yet he didn't have time to wonder or ask Rebecca further about what she meant, because the next she was actually giving him demands.

Her words stay steady. "So here’s the deal. You stay away from my family. You refrain from drinking people dry. And I’ll find anything you do want to know, and eventually, perhaps, tell you everything about how it is I’m here, and Rowland is."

She stops walking, this time she’s the one invading his space, close enough to mutter while shrugging a shoulder, pleasant even.

"You come near them, or leave bodies scattered anywhere, and I won’t ever help. I’m not going to threaten to kill you. Or expose you. But sooner or later Marcus, someone is going to."

His eyebrow actually steadily lifted higher and higher with every condition she was putting on. Staying away from her family (oh foolish Rebecca she should have said 'loved ones' for there were plenty of people in her life that didn't fit in to the simple 'family', he had found a loophole so easily), no drinking people to their deaths (but not their near-deaths).

"Do you want me to help old ladies cross the street while I'm at it?"

Who did she think she was? And yet her offer was one that was tantalizing and seductive, yet she seemed determined not to hear whether he would accept or reject; her words scarcely leaving room for interference.

She waits a long breath, with narrowed eyes intent on his and then adds lighter, so much lighter with her chin jerking up, "God  _damn_ you," and oh the irony of that, but she was talking more about herself, "Marcus. I don’t know how you got under my skin so badly, but you did. So I guess, being the self-righteous, sanctimonious, infuriating, guilting, Love-loving human that I am -- I’m just going to  _have_ to try and save your soul, aren’t I?"

He always appreciated when someone took the Lord's name in vain for his benefit, and this was no different as Rebecca cursed him, and he smirked as she continued and didn't drop it until a moment before she left, exhaling. She turns on the spot and disapparates before he says a word, but she thinks  when she lands outside Giselle’s house and puts her hand on the wall to steady and inhale, Rebecca’s swallowing the last of his exhale.

Marcus shakes his head, clearing it out, turning around to keep walking just for the mere sake of it. Rebecca would have a hard time of doing that, especially because the existence of his soul was in question to begin with, but at least it meant she would stick around.

Because she got under his skin too.

 

 


	19. Impossible Things For Breakfast.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're quite good with milk and a bit of cinnamon.

**Brandin:** You did what?  
  
 ** **Rebecca:**** Look. I know it wasn't in my power to decide what th-  
  
 **Brandin:** You didn't. You made the deal between the two of you. What were you thi-  
  
 ** **Rebecca:**** I didn't have the right to be his judge or executioner either!  
  
 **Brandin:** -promising to tell him what a woman long gone think--*hears her* What?  
  
 ** **Rebecca:**** And that's assuming I could have when we both know the trick with the knife was a fl---what? Oh, of course. I assumed you were upset I basically decided to utterly subvert justice but of course, you're not upset about my breaking the government's laws.  
  
 **Brandin:** Not especially, though you didn't--the deal's between the two of you. The laws of time on the other hand?!  
  
 ** **Rebecca:**** Oh for God's sakes--  
  
 **Brandin:** Oh do you believe in God then? Because you just declared yourself one.  
  
 ** **Rebecca:**** Oooohhh the fact that you jus--should I say for Brandin's sakes?!  
  
 **Brandin:** *lips twitch, then 'modest'* For Fayes sakes would be fine.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *shakes her head* The laws of time? What an absolutely ridiculous term--  
  
 **Brandin:** If by ridiculous you mean "those things that preserve our ability to perceive order out of the chaos -"  
  
 **Rebecca:** Well, I'll give you this much--at least the fact that you say it's our perception means you acknowledge it truly isn't linear at all--  
  
 **Brandin:** Of course not. *eyes narrow* I'm not an idiot, Rebecca. And now I've spent half my adult life studying this.  
  
 **Rebecca:** Then tell me this. Why doesn't the Aetas work?  
  
 **Brandin:** ...it does. It just has the unfortunate circumstance of being cursed, do you recall?  
  
 **Rebecca:** You broke that.  
  
 **Brandin:** I healed Parker, I never broke the curse on the artifact--  
  
 **Rebecca:** \--fine, then you can heal whomever uses it again and then-  
  
 **Brandin:** No, I cannot. 1884 was different. 1884, Abira had done nothing to it yet, though it was newly filled with her grief. I could draw from her and that for Parker's sake-  
  
 **Rebecca:** \--because she created it out of her love with John, yes?  
  
 **Brandin:** ...no, not ou-no, they combined the magic of ten turners, melted them down, poured them into her clock, fiddled with the pendulum inside it-- according along the theory from the Great Exhibition they went to see, adhering to the Kent principles--  
  
 **Rebecca:** *--waving this away, impatient and eye-rolling,* Did they do it all to try and find a place they could be together as equals, get married--because they loved each other?  
  
 **Brandin:** *eye rolls* Yes. That doesn't mean I could make you another one, Rebecca.  
  
 **Rebecca:** That's not what I'm asking.  
  
 **Brandin:** Then what does that matter?  
  
 **Rebecca:** It, what does th--*incredulous flustered gasp*--tha- It's everything! It's the only thing that matters! Good Go--Faye, how can you be so smart and so thick at once?! Why didn't it take Rowland?  
  
 **Brandin:** *narrows eyes* Reminding me I failed to send him ho--  
  
 **Rebecca:** You didn't fail. You did everything you should. It worked fine. We know that because Damocles is all through the history books with his proclamation--  
  
 **Brandin:** \--and because I'm sitting here.  
  
 **Rebecca:** That too!  
  
 **Brandin:** Which I couldn't be, if we hadn't sent him home. Because we acknowledged a linear progression, Rebecca. Be-  
  
 **Rebecca:** No. *Headshakes* He did. Because he wasn't ready to be here, because his wife wasn't here with him and he met his great great grandchildren and knew he did not wish to jeopardize them -- not because something in the universe's fabric itself would have torn open had he not gone back.  
  
 **Brandin:** Well, that may be true, but I'm rather thankful he did anyway-but I assume you have a point that isn't to talk about the epic love of my ancestors?  
  
 **Rebecca:** Rowland on the other han-  
  
 **Brandin:** \--of course, to talk about your and Rowland's, epic love--  
  
 **Rebecca:** *cuts off momentarily to snort, head tilts as she allows and nods, and then says flatly* The Aetas wouldn't take Rowland because it was designed to help lovers be together. Not rip them apart. I would never have asked Rowland to stay--just as he'd never have asked me to come with. And it would have destroyed us both. You and I both know the war that's going to rip Faye apart--  
  
 **Brandin:** *folding the tips of fingers together; says pleasantly* did-  
  
 **Rebecca:** \-- while I would never believe that  Rowland could become Marcus? He killed Claudia just as I stabbed Marcus. That's what we were willing to do for each other then--whose to say that he wouldn't--when Mitchell is going missing!? His little brother?!  
  
 **Brandin:** *Still pleasant,* Went, missing.  
  
 **Rebecca:** Oh, you've found him then?! *eye rolls* Because I haven't. Nothing. Nothing at all, -*slaps thigh*- --and if you think I haven't tried to find out, so I could tell my husband his brother's safe-  
  
 **Brandin:** Was.  
  
 **Rebecca:** \--oh for god's sakes, stop that!  
  
 **Brandin:** May I speak now? *eyebrow arch* Or do you feel I need another lecture?  
  
 **Rebecca:** *huffs and sits down* You know I think you and Marcus would get along.  
  
 **Brandin:** *tiny lip flick* While...that's an interesting note -  
  
 **Rebecca:** Yes, well, *both shoulders shrug up to her ears as she smirks* I spent too much time with Fayes.  
  
 **Brandin:** *brow arches as he chuckles* Impossible.  
  
 **Rebecca:** I love impossible things, haven't you heard? I have them for breakfast with milk and-  
  
 **Brandin:** Rebecca.  
  
 **Rebecca:** -*flaps hand* a bit of cinnamon. *huffs* Considering you're about to lecture me, I think I'm justified.  
  
 **Brandin:** Yes Rebecca. When you promise to share your cinnamon impossible things breakfast with the vampire responsible for the death of one of my ancestors and half the town, you're right, I'm wrong to be concerned.  
  
 **Rebecca:** ....well, there's a sentence I never thought you'd say.  
  
 **Brandin:** ...I was a bit surprised to hear "cinnamon impossible things brea-"  
  
 **Rebecca:** Not that. *tiny smile* You're concerned about me?  
  
 **Brandin:** Ah. *Tiny smile himself, shrugs his shoulder,* And the state of the universe and-  
  
 **Rebecca:** Brandin Faye, I love you too.  
  
 **Brandin:** *tiny laugh/accepts* Yes, well, be that as it may, at the moment it's the state of the universe concerning me a bit more.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *brightly* Because you've learned I can take care of myself and not to try and stop me when I tell you something?  
  
 **Brandin:** Yes, because you're stubborn, incorrigible -  
  
 **Rebecca:** *tiny brow flick at the word but, she says nothing*-  
  
 **Brandin:**   - and downright infuriating, but you also happen to be rather good at breaking the laws of physics.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *Sweetly,* Higher praise, I have never received. All for love, you know.  
  
 **Brandin:** I'm aware.  
  
 **Rebecca:** I know you are. Because you didn't know for seven years you had a son, and you still told Isobel you understood why she left.  
  
 **Brandin:** ...the amount which you know-is...disconcerting.  
  
 **Rebecca:** ...Brandin. You told me that.  
  
 **Brandin:** Did I?  
  
 **Rebecca:** *nodding* Though again, you and Marcus, *she holds her index and middle fingers up twined together *--  
  
 **Brandin:** *Chuckle,* So no, I do not care that you "subverted justice"--which, all you technically did there was saying you would not press charges on the matter of his breaking into Blair's school. That's the only authority you had you told him you wouldn't use.  
  
 **Rebecca:** ...*clenches teeth* I could press charges all I wish, a fat lot of good it would do-  
  
 **Brandin:** Still, hardly a subversion of the government, Rebecca. As I'm not your husband, no, I can't say it's what concerns me, as that choice is yours.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *flinches, hissing with her intake,* ...Rowland will understand.  
  
 **Brandin:** Again, that's between you two. The universe's space-time continuum on the other hand rather concerns us all.  
  
 **Rebecca:** What's the Kent principle?  
  
 **Brandin:** *blink* ...There's four--what--  
  
 **Rebecca:** And you know them all backwards and forwards because you've 'spent half your life studying this'-  
  
 **Brandin:** *Head tilts,* Yes.  
  
 **Rebecca:** And you  sent me back with the Aetas once.  
  
 **Brandin:** Well that was differe-  
  
 **Rebecca:** *snorts* Only because I convinced you it was.  
  
 **Brandin:** The logical thing was to send you. It is not to take Marcus back to the past.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *tiniest bit surprised* That wasn't what I said I'd do.  
  
 **Brandin:** I can read between the lines, Rebecca.  
  
 **Rebecca:** He doesn't want t--though by all means if I could do that, if he could save Natalie and Alphonse instea--  
  
 **Brandin:** Then Marcus dies sometime in the 18th century, he never meets Claudia  she never infiltrates Faye.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *wilts  & says with a tiny sigh* ...and I never go back for Rowland.  
  
 **Brandin:** *nods*  
  
 **Rebecca:** Well, now I just feel awfully selfish. I found my fairytale ending, what makes me worthier than him for it!? Why should I decide what love he does or does not deserve?  
  
 **Brandin:** When you took it upon yourself to promise him the laws of time had no meaning to you.  
  
 **Rebecca:** So that he would agree! So he stops! I do not truly believe that Natalie would, if she could, tell him she loves him still. And has forever. And that she always will. And that she wants him to put the past behind him and find a way --  
  
 **Brandin:** Are you going to trick him into believing that?  
  
 **Rebecca:** *startles* What!?  
  
 **Brandin:** That is a hell of a lot to put on the woman's memory. A woman you've never met whose been dead for three centuries, who was married to his brother, who spent the last hundreds of years watching the man she loved ripped apart and ripping others apart.  
  
 **Rebecca:** Yes. *snaps* Because I don't give a fuck about it, because maybe two hundred and fifty years alone, brutalizing himself over and over again was the penance he did for all that he did to others and you know what? If I have these gifts, I am going to use them, and considering all he did to me and those I love--the fact that I still want to help him-- that means something. If I had the right of it to stab him, then I have the fucking right of it to try to save him too. And, by the way, maybe stop something he did with the Death Eaters--  
  
 **Brandin:** *startles* Pardon?  
  
 **Rebecca:** \--off topic, I'll-- later. *exhale* He just...he's in so much pain, Brandin.  
  
 **Brandin:** *quiets and then nods, sitting back down himself, folding his hands and then shuts his eyes, saying,* You truly are one of the most infuriatingly, emotionally, logical people I know.  
  
 **Rebecca:** *Lips flick and she nods, shrugging a shoulder,* You understand. Isobel forgave you too. All you did. Engineering that virus--  
  
 **Brandin:** *flinches, and shakes his head, clenching his teeth together,* I never meant for anyone to die--you know by all we learned I was able to give another man the notes? Now, he'd say all I did was point him which concept he was missing but, still. *He chuckles.* He made potions of regeneration...that are astounding.  
  
 **Rebecca:** Who's this? *Tiny smile.*  
  
 **Brandin:** *Sighs, exhales and shakes his head.* ...an old friend. He's gone, though. Which by the way--when you say Death Eaters-  
  
 **Rebecca:** -*waves hand*- You know why I know Rowland will forgive me?  
  
 **Brandin:** Because he loves you?  
  
 **Rebecca:** ...well, that too, but no. Because he'll understand too--because just like me, the thought of being a murderer is a reminder we're the same as Marcus or--Claudia, at least. It's not triumph. It's tragedy.  
  
 **Brandin:** If it keeps your family safe-  
  
 **Rebecca:** See, I have to believe there's another way to do that.  
  
 **Brandin:** And if you're wrong?  
  
 **Rebecca:** *Her hand leaps to her throat and after a moment of rubbing hard, she shakes her head and says instead,* Then...I'm wrong. I'm human, I can be wrong. That's okay.  
  
 **Brandin:** ...see that I don't understand.  
  
 **Rebecca:** Imagine my shock.  
  
 **Brandin:** *tiny chuckle* Rebecca-  
  
 **Rebecca:** There's another reason. Blair would forgive him. Marcus. *She looks up slowly, swallowing,* First time we ever told her the story,  was when she started primary and someone else told her there was no way her father's birthdate was 1865. So...we told her it all, just--as a fairytale. And our four year old, who begged us for every little detail and asked me to make her a dress like the red one I wore when I met Rowland, who shrieked it wasn't the dragon's fault and who cried when I said Portia died, who wouldn't let go of Jude's leg for weeks after that--she said, it was a good story.  
  
But she didn't like the ending, though we shouldn't feel bad because we were heroes. She didn't like that she couldn't meet Damocles. *her lips flick* And...she said it was sad that Claudia died because she lost her brother, and that Marcus just ran. She said we should change the end so, we could save them instead. *Rebecca lifts her gaze back to Brandin's, waiting a quiet moment. Then she says softly.* If I actually can do that, there's not a thing in the world that could stop me.  
  
 **Brandin:** *Understanding, he nods quietly and only says,* ...I wouldn't try.


End file.
